The Canals are Burning
by Cuofeng
Summary: Race, class, politics, and belief. Two decades after the end of the Hundred Year War the city of Ba Sing Se is changing. At the river harbor foreign ships unload their cargo, in the inner rings professors and ministers debate the fate of the nation, and in the shadowed alleys new magic emerges. Ayika is a poor servant but she will soon be at the heart of a crisis in this new world.
1. Sunrise

...

It was late and the largest city in the world was asleep. Scattered oil-lanterns gleamed up like stars across the dark and jumbled expanse of tiled roofs. The night air was still but this ancient metropolis of stone and brick was never truly quiet. Even in these early hours, before the farmers outside the encircling city wall awoke to hitch up their beasts, the streets and alleys still echoed. Ten thousand subtle nighttime sounds merged together into the silent roar of life temporarily interrupted.

The man who glared out from his high tower window did not appreciate these nightly noises. Of course, he was also the sort of man who disapproved of playful children and refused to trust sunny meadows, so his attitude was not exactly unusual. However, tonight at least he had good reason to stand here in his thick silk robe and glower at the night. His plan for this city had just been dealt a setback.

A second man stood behind him at the top of a steep lacquered staircase. He carefully stood several paces away from the walls, still not accustomed to the uneasy feeling brought on by their decorations.

"I apologize," he said. "Tonight's attack on the secret society was swift and in the confusion it seems the assailant was able to escape."

The man by the window growled out at the dark. "Those fools let it be taken? After all the power I gave them? Imbeciles. All they had to do was find a hiding spot! I might almost think this city's guardian spirits had ironically roused themselves just to spite me." He exhaled slowly to calm his breathing. "But it is still within the city?" Within the cuffs of his robe, hands clenched and unclenched in an anxious rhythm.

The subordinate paused delicately as he considered his next statement. "Yes, as far as I can tell. Forgive me, but though this is unfortunate, is it a disaster? The ambassador's death was the ignition, but I was under the impression that what will happen next is now merely a matter of time. The radius of effect is quite large, is it not?"

His master continued to stare out into the dark and declined to answer. Each of those gleaming lights below his window represented a prize in this coming clash of powers. He couldn't feel the spiritual change yet but that would come soon.

"This city has been rotting for centuries. They have forgotten the spirits of the land. Now heaven has given us an opportunity to remake this entire country. In all the population only a bare handful fit to even recognize what is awakening, let alone to stop it." He gestured vaguely behind his back. "I have recorded all their names on that sheet."

The servant held the indicated paper forward in both hands as he bowed. "They will be monitored and dealt with accordingly. I will relay it to the organization." He moved towards a small brazier that quietly glowed in the corner of the room. "Shall I destroy the list?"

A twitch jerked across the man by the window and he quickly walked over to snatch the list in his own hands. "No, no burning for now. Given the plan it hardly seems appropriate."

He glanced around the room as if suddenly aware of many watching eyes. This near the dim light of the brazier's coals, dark shadows sprang up over his face turning him to an eyeless echo of the rows of silent masks that hung across the walls. The painted wooden faces were carved with horn and fang in endless colored variety. Then a coal split and in the changing light both the master and his masks bore flickering smiles.

"We have other means of destruction at our disposal."

...

Ayika stood balanced on the peak of a dusty tile roof, looking out across the tangled streets and canals in the dying shreds of night. From there she slowly moved over to lean against a stub of soot-blackened chimneys and felt the cold seep out of the bricks through her dress. Her breath came a bit heavily after the climb but this precarious perch was the perfect viewing spot for the coming performance. She liked to call it the second sunrise.

In the dimming dark, Ayika could just make out the jagged rooftop landscape of the sprawling harbor town around her. Bestriding a wide river clogged with anchored steamships and sailing junks, this mini-metropolis would in any other place be a large and important city. However, here it was a limpet clinging to the looming mountain-like wall of Ba Sing Se, capital jewel of all the Earth Kingdoms. Somewhere out beyond sight in each direction there were twenty other such towns clutching to that same immeasurable stone barrier. Come dawn, Ayika would be able to see endless prayers chiseled high on the wall above the harbor gate, at least for a few minutes until the smoke of ten thousand cook-fires reformed the urban haze that drifted up over the wall like steam from a bowl of soup.

Grandma Aka had never really liked prayer. Aka had said that teaching people to respect the spirits was fine, but encouraging ordinary folk to go around calling out to the other world was just asking for trouble. She'd often growled, "Spirits need us as much we need them and you can never let them forget. Everything has a cost."

Sayings like that were why the town had called her Aka the River Witch, though never to her face. Aka had used a different word: shaman. To Aka, the spirit world was a powerful and unpredictable thing, most often valued in its distance despite her own familiarity with it. To her, the local spirit gods like Blind Dog Lord, Golden Toad, and the Builder King all shared the same rank as the butcher and the tobacco seller and deserved the same sharp tongue.

Grandma Aka had been of a different, wilder place. The North was a land of storms, seas, and mountains where nothing was given that you did not take yourself. She hadn't understood this land of temples, bureaucrats, and walls. Now, in the early morning half-light, Ayika waited dreamed of far off places. Places where you could see anything, even a single thing that was not shaped or changed or clouded by human industry. A place where a teenage girl could stretch out and not hit carved and fitted stone on all sides. A place where she wouldn't have to get up before the sun and flee a tiny apartment to find somewhere not occupied by a mother cooking or a father stacking his work equipment or a little brother screeching like an injured gull.

Behind her, the sky finally blushed from purple to red and then Ayika caught sight of what she had come up here to watch. It was opposite the slowly birthing sun, over on the other side of the River Reformed's ship-clogged banks. There, across the dark expanse of the slums, the gloom of night suddenly blazed with an errant sunrise as one by one the huge furnaces of fifteen foreign-sponsored factories came to life.

From her rooftop Ayika could see the factories' doors and windows belch forth an angry light: red, writhing, and alive. Dark and soot stained, those buildings breathed in and out with fire. That entire burning quarter was reflected in the web of canals around them, setting them on fire with blazing light. It was like the Fire Nation was forging a new god on the far side of the river.

Ayika loved something about those factories. Despite all the anger and suspicion directed towards the Westerners there was an intangible power here that Ayika imagined she felt inside her chest; the force of new ideas. It was spiritual in its own way. In her imagination the foreigners were pulling light towards those mysterious furnaces, feeding a fire that promised to burst forth across the city, burning away all the chains of paper and stamp ink in the blinding fury of its creation. It would leave something new and bright. Then, as she watched, that distant blazing display slowly quieted down to the tame illumination of pacified fire.

One by one, the great smokestacks began to put forth clouds of black smoke. From her perch Ayika could just hear the low keen of the horns across the bridges and canals. That sound carried local workers to the factories, performing jobs on assembly lines that didn't require understanding of the foreign machines they served. Those horns were also the curtain call. The time of secret sorcery was over.

Ayika didn't know exactly why she loved watching this so much that she would trudge through the early morning and climb an apartment building once a month. Perhaps it felt like Grandma Aka's witchcraft. Maybe it was like being part of a story larger than her own. The Fire Nation and their foreign industrialism was the promise of danger, but it was also the promise of change. Change into what, Ayika struggled to imagine but it had to be better than what she had.

The sky was slowly turning blue-grey above her and the sun now promised to show itself above the low hills of the farmland to the east. Ayika stood up on the roof-tiles and stretched her arms behind her as she arched her back. On a nearby rooftop, her motions mirrored those of a small feral gargoyle that sat at the end of a projecting wooden eve languidly grooming its fur and wings.

The early light bounced off Ayika's long dark hair and a distant thought regretted that it had more wave than the sleek black hair of true locals. Then a second thought rebelled against the first, silencing it once again in a very familiar pattern. Those same first rays of sunlight played on her cheeks whose dark complexion marked her as an immigrant even though she'd been born a ten minute walk from here. Her parents might have been from the far off Water Tribe but Ayika had been born here in the City. This was her true home and she'd never known any other.

For a moment, Ayika looked out wistfully at the panoramic vista of apartments, fields, slums, and factories. Then she took a final deep breath of cleansing morning air and her reward was a lungful of smoke from the chimney beside her. Someone below had started their breakfast cooking. Her violent hacking shattered the dawn calm and startled the poor fuzzy gargoyle near out of its skin. The little creature launched into the air in a hissing flurry of fur and feathers, glaring back at her as it glided off. Ayika laughed, however, since Ayika was still standing in the lee of the chimney, laughing just filled her mouth with more soot.

A moment later, still coughing, she made her way down off the tiles through a maze of roof gardens, rain spouts, and balconies with the swift ease of an exceptionally sure-footed goat or of a city girl, born and raised. With a thud, Ayika landed down in an alley and took a moment to roll down her faded blue dress from above her hips. She'd bunched the poor simple thing up over her the trousers she wore underneath in part for better movement, but also because she couldn't afford to risk one of her four outfits getting ripped any more than she could risk tripping on it while climbing. Then Ayika took a final breath to steel herself for returning to civilization.

She stepped out onto the streets that were already filling with the daily chaos of the working quarter of the harbor town outside the south-eastern section of the capital city of the Earth Kingdoms. These streets meandered in their courses and were paved with flat stones beside trickling recessed gutters. Above them, the buildings sat squished together into exaggerated shapes under pointed tile hats, waving their pennants of hanging laundry.

Ayika ducked around mothers laying out low tables in the street, barrow-porters pushing passengers in front of them, and knife-grinders setting up their spinning stones. She made her way down the small hill of her factory viewing post; around corners, over canals, through doorways and alleys. As she went along, her pace became faster and faster. Thought became sheer instinct: race over a bridge, slide sideways through a gap between wagons, and jump down a thin flight of steps, water splashing off her boots.

Smooth as flowing wine she spun around the curses of a man carrying a stack of poultry cages, deflected herself past a cart and then stood at the top of short flight of stone steps under a dirty grey stone archway. Before her was a muddy slope leading down to the tangled slum of the Bed, below where the rest of the city thought the ground's surface ended. She was panting slightly as she surveyed the rickety wooden stairs that led to that dingy teeming domain, and grinned. Grandma Aka may have had her forests and her wilds, but before Ayika was a jungle, and it was hers.

...

(Author's Note: I welcome and encourage all comments, criticism, and discussion.)


	2. Riverbed

...

The rising sun was still just considering its path into the sky as Ayika cast herself down those uneven steps from the ancient riverbank into the warren-like alleys of the Bed. Down here all the ragged wooden buildings had their own sense of mismatched individuality. They leaned against each other for support as they struggled on their stilts to stay just above the stinking mud the filled the bottom of this wide shallow valley.

Back when the great Impenetrable City had been founded, the Kuang River had been a broad and mighty expanse that carried the rainfall of the northern mountains down to water the city's crops and carry its ships out to the distant sea. However, floods had threatened the farmers so an ancient king had his earth benders built canals and levees to tame its fury. Then the city was thirsty so one of the tributaries was rerouted through aqueducts to feed the fountains. A later queen thought that water-roads would ease transportation in the growing metropolis so the river was lessened by the lifeblood that filled them. But then the sewers were overburdened so another slice of the river was diverted to clean them. So it went for two thousand years until the city was renown for its canals and bridges, gloried for its fountains and pools, and not a single shred of the Kuang was left to be seen within its far-stretching walls.

Here outside the city's wall, what was once the path of the great river was left a damp and muddy valley. This depression stretched from the edge of the city to the harbor levy where the various sewers and canals finally converged to reassemble the waterway. That forgotten riverbed was so prone to flooding and disease that no sane human would call it home. So inevitably a community of thousands sprang up there, filling the depression with a mess of buildings as eccentric as their inhabitants. The poor, the unlucky, and the immigrants all made their home below the river while the rest of the city happily forgot their existence. That was the Bed, and above it massive stone bridges and vaulted sewers stretched from bank to former bank, steadfastly ignoring absence of river beneath them.

Down near the base of one of those pylons, Ayika turned a narrow corner and opened the creaking apartment door to hear the familiar sound of her mother telling someone how to live their life better.

"...that they'd think I wouldn't notice just goes to show there's so little respect for the basic sense of the matter!"

Ayika's mother, Maekayae, managed an impressive amount of multitasking even without considering whatever lecture Ayika had just wandered into. Maekayae stirred a little cooking pot and gestured intensely with her free hand whenever it wasn't absently straightening and rearranging the hundred articles in the tiny kitchen that occupied the largest corner the apartment. She had the same short and wide-hipped Western figure that Ayika had reluctantly inherited, but Maekayae wore it proudly. She had a way of planting her feet like she was almost daring the world to try and knock her down. Nearby, Ayika's little brother Oakas was seated at the lone low table, head sleepily propped up by his hands, clearly not the recipient or subject of this lecture.

Ayika's quick glance around the room confirmed that her dad was already gone. There was precious little space to hide in this apartment. There were only two rooms and any spot that wasn't occupied by the small chests of their possessions, beds, or by mother's stacks of leathers awaiting sewing was just floors and walls of dark ill-fitting timbers. Those planks were all the castoffs of the shipyards, sold cheaply or unknowingly to the residents of the Bed for constructing their houses. People said that one day the Kuang River would break free and return to its former home but they would be ready. The houses of the Bed remembered how to ride the waves.

Of course, Grandma Aka had always shaken her head when she heard people say this. Then she would flash her sinister gap-toothed smirk and say that was hardly half of what was going to happen when the River God came back. She'd made people nervous when she said thing like that. Her eyes convinced you they saw more than yours did.

Grandma Aka's chair still sat in the corner, draped in blankets and dust, as Maekayae continued talking to her absent husband. Ayika slipped off her boots at the door and walked over to roll up the futon she shared with her little brother. Of course he had not done so, despite being the last one up but Ayika's fraternal expectations were already very low. Her mother continued obliviously:

"Oh and Kadat, do try and talk to Karonak today. His Anaka is just getting so stressed about her aunt's funeral and needs someone to take some of it off her. She's been wailing at me about what the spirits might do if things aren't all proper. Honestly, if your mother was still around it might-"

"Mom," Ayika broke in as she stuffed the bedroll into its ragged wicker chest. She needed to stop this before her mother could build up steam on a new topic. "Dad left already."

Her mother spun and glanced around the husbandless room. "Oh," she said, showing no trace of embarrassment. "Well, at least he grabbed his lunch pack I set out for him."

Then those eyes focused on Ayika who instantly regretted calling attention to herself.

"And you, missy," her mother continued while ladling rice-porridge into the boy's bowl who began automatically shoving it into his mouth. "It's about time you're back. You can't be coming running out like that first thing in the morning. Is that mud on your dress? Here let me get that. You know you need to look nice for those fancy girls you work for."

Ayika dodged the offered hand as it darted towards her. "Mom, it's fine. Look, it's just some dust. It's not like they let me wear these clothes at the school anyway. I'm into my uniform the instant I get through that door." She brushed at the offending skirt. There was no need to mention climbing up on rooftops.

Ayika allowed herself to be guided down onto a stool at the table and took the bowl of porridge placed before her as she tried to run a comb through her wavy hair. Parents always had a strange ability to make their children instantly feel ten years younger.

"Oh, I wish that job let you take the uniform home with you. You looked so pretty in that dress," her mother said as Ayika half listened, chewing methodically while she worked her fingers through knots the comb found. Then Ayika's eyes brightened momentarily. There was a bit of fish in the porridge today; a pleasant if slightly extravagant surprise for this household.

Maekayae continued to talk as she stirred, "Still, the school really isn't paying you that much, really. And the job's so far away you use up half your time riding the city tram in and out. See, I was talking to Mrs Anyakya's niece-in-law the other day and she said that Mrs Anyakya said that she'd be glad to take a girl like you at her cleaners. I'll get that set up for you."

Ayika hurriedly swallowed her mouthful to break back into this one-sided conversation, "I'm not going to go back to being a house-cleaner! You know how hard I worked to find this job." The comb snagged again, jerking painfully in her hair.

"Oh, it wouldn't be that," her mother carried on. "Anyakya always needs more pretty homeland girls to staff the counters. And there you'd get to show everyone how smart you are. I'm sure you'd be helping run one of the shops before too long. The money'd be better as well. Which'd be good because these city-bred Tribe boys don't even come sniffing around if a girl hasn't gotten herself a salary."

This time Ayika almost choked. "Mom? I thought we were talking about jobs?"

Her mother paid the outrage no mind. "Oh, you're sixteen, girl. Stop acting childish. Marriage bears thinking on, whatever these so-called modern girls say they're doing."

"Yeah, Ayika. Stop acting childish!" said Oakas, wide awake now that his favorite activity, criticizing Ayika, had began.

"Shut up," Ayika growled as she swiped across the table at her brother. He simply leaned back out of her way and stuck out his tongue. For her troubles Ayika received a rap across the knuckles from a carefully wielded wooden spoon.

"Enough of that. Let your brother eat. He needs his energy before he goes to the teacher-man. Going to learn enough writing to sit an exam one day, our little boy. Maybe work in the Post Office, good government job," her mother said, beaming distractedly. Oakas just grinned while Ayika silently gulped down another spoonful of her breakfast.

"See, that's my point as well," Ayika said after a moment, attempting to regain her lost momentum. She elected to ignore the mention of marriage for now, her mother was too rooted in the old-country to accept that there was a different timetable here. "Look, at the school I can listen in on the lessons and actually learn things. Just this week Professor Lizhen was going over this amazing story about the early days of the war from the Islanders' side and I heard nearly the whole thing. Like I was his student. I can't go from that to just being a wash-girl or a maid!"

"Honey, you're a maid right now," her mother replied absently, busy with tying back Oakas' long hair as he continued eating.

Ayika grunted. Her mother was being infuriating, ignorant, and of course she was right. It didn't matter of Ayika closed her eyes while listening to the lecturers and dreamed herself into a desk at the front row. Ayika was just a maid, no matter what she liked to imagine. She stood up from the table and went over to quickly wash her face and hands in the little bowl set aside, lifting her top up for a moment to run a damp cloth under her arms. Feeling her mother's continued pointed silence pressing on her back, she jerked down her top as firmly as possible to communicate that this debate was not over.

Then she turned back towards the table and saw Grandma Aka's chair over in its corner. Beside it, on a low shelf, sat the carved spirit idols of bone and wood and shark teeth that Aka had promised held enough ritual power to offer some protection for the house. Aka had also winked when she said that so Ayika had never been sure whether to actually believe her. However, other people did.

In Kuang Harbor, those who couldn't afford to have priests carve their prayers in the city wall came down to the Bed and to Aka the River Witch. From across the twisted blocks and tangled alleys of the overgrown harbor town they made their way towards a small dark skinned woman in giant boots who knew the ways of the spirits. The petitioners came with problems of love, business, sickness, and fertility. All this was inevitably attributed to the spirit world, even if Ayika could have sworn that Aka's fingers were sometimes crossed as she said so.

Grandma Aka had never seemed very happy in the city, and had often complained that the family should never have come here with all the other immigrants after the end of the war. She snapped and grumbled, stewing litanies against ignorance and helplessness to be unleashed at every supplicant even as she performed whatever spirit ritual she'd decided on. But still people came and they left satisfied, whether their problems were mystical or mundane. The little old lady had been a mobile fixture of the Bed, audible from around the street corner if anyone managed to miss the grey-blue smoke cloud which collected above her furiously tended pipe. That bone-work curve had been Aka's one concession to City customs and one loudly self-predicted to be the cause of her death.

She'd probably been quite pleased when she finally did pass on after a respectable bout of coughing at an age no one could guess at, that even to her own son was "none your damn business". She certainly would have liked the midnight procession to the docks, sneaking out ahead of the district functionary and his death exam fee, his stamp charge, his mandatory burial sites, and his burial site upkeep fee. So Grandma Aka had finally left the city by ship as she wanted, though now wrapped in a blanket weighted with stones. People of the Water Tribe always returned to the sea sooner or later, if only for the final descent back into the embrace of the depths.

Ayika completed her toilet and then moved over to pull on her own boots at the door. She glanced up to see her mother looking down with concern.

Maekayae sighed, "Look honey, I know you like that school job. It's just the money and that you don't have time left over for meeting, uh, people, if you're trekking halfway 'cross the city and back every day." She waved away Ayika's response with a tired hand. "We can talk about it tonight. You just be gettin' going now. Oh!"

Her mother grabbed a small parcel off the kitchen counter and said, "Your father forgot to grab the Bao boys' lunch when he went! Ooh that...! And I still have to watch Oakas 'till... Honey, do you think you've time to-?"

Ayika grabbed the package. "Yeah, I can swing it. I'll slide by the docks on my way." And then because she didn't want her mother stewing all day over her girl 'giving her attitude' she smiled as she made for the doorway.

That seemed to comfort her mother. She fell back into washing off bowls and clearing the kitchen. "Hmm. You're already not exactly on time for the tram. It's just that I worry about those two boys and-"

"It's fine mom. I got it. I'll see you tonight."

On the narrow plank walkway outside Ayika's apartment, the familiar faces of her neighbors greeted her just as familiar smells assaulted from the thick mud below the stilted buildings. Down here the skin tones were brown like hers, and hair colors differing from the uniform flat black of the kingdom. In the Bed no one had money, no one was a bender, and less than half could trace their ancestry to anywhere closer than five hundred kilometers away. It was nice.

Then Ayika's path through the winding alleys opened up and the river-wall rose up before her. From every direction elevated aqueducts, sewers, and drainage canals converged and merged and angled for this massive dam, green with damp and stained with leaks. The river-wall lay straight across the Bed from bank to bank while beyond this protective bulk the River Reformed gurgled back into existence, reunited from its various imprisonments rather the worse for wear having passed through the artificial organs of the vast city.

Ayika glanced down at the packed lunches and smiled as she started up the stairs. She could actually go for seeing Xinfei and Xiaobao today. The two brothers had basically grown up with her, playing in the same back alleys and being schooled on how to sort-of read by the same half blind teacher in a slightly larger alley. They'd spent bored afternoons spitting into the canal that bordered the Islanders' district, and continued to be fast friends even after all three of them had gone on to jobs across the city.

Ayika crested the river-wall embankment into the morning light. Beneath the narrow walkway, tunnels and pipes drained the immense city into the ever widening water. Then Ayika was out of the canyon of putrid waterfalls and into the nexus of canals.

She crossed an arching stone bridge as a dozen huge drainage canals, light brown with sediment from the endless fields and orchards to the east and west, came together to reform as the expansive and powerful Kuang River, resurrected from humiliation into a new kind of life. Sometimes if Ayika held her hand out over the true river, the color of the water matched her skin exactly. Her grandmother had said there was power in that. Ayika had tried to believe her.

Then Ayika broke through the last skin of residential life into bridges, canals, and quays of the bustling waterfront of the Kuang Harbor docks. Before her stretched an endless lines of ships and the uncountable population that catered to them.

...


	3. Foreigners

...

The docks of Ba Sing Se were both spectacular and depressing. Past the Kuang River's turbulent reformation over a hundred long stone piers jutted out into the muddy brown water. The piers' stone was stained green with centuries of moisture and worn down by the passage of endless generations. Out at the end of one of the jetties, two government earth benders in dark green robes executed precise arm motions as they summoned their inner qi energy. In answer to their spell a huge mound of sodden earth levitated up from the water of the ship berth, floating into the air before collapsing down into a waiting barge. Magic served at the will of the King and commerce, just like everyone else in the city.

Beside the riverside forest of ship masts and smokestacks, the grand stone facades of merchant warehouses loomed, hoary and weathered from their neglect during the great war. For decades, enemy warships had choked the river mouth with a blockade and, bereft of trade, Kuang Harbor had begun to wither away. However, in the end the war had died first. Today the silver blood of prosperity flowed once more but the ancient trust in the river was dead. These people knew where the silver now came from.

Among the chaotic wooden press of rib-sailed junks and paddle steamers, tall foreign ships loomed like fortresses with black metal hulls. Twenty years had passed since the war ended and those would-be conquerors came as merchants instead but the City had not forgotten. However, that old grudge was not going to stop anyone from making a profit.

Along the waterfront, Ayika crossed bridge after bridge over more canals that seemed more full of boats than water. On the street, hawkers called out to sell their latest Fire Nation fashions, businessmen argued to buy Fire Nation machines, and painted signs proudly proclaimed that their store carried Fire Nation glassware. These days there was hardly a major business in this city that didn't sell the foreigners' products or owe them money. This raised questions about nature of national pride but right now Ayika mostly focused on not being trampled by the bustling crowds.

As she passed a rare empty ship berth, Ayika looked out down the river to see her father's little pilot boat guiding a wallowing trading junk out towards the bay and the sea beyond. She could just make out the pilot captain with his ridiculous green hat but at this distance her father was only a slightly darker-skinned blotch amongst the other sun-tanned backs pulling on the oars or the ropes to the sails.

A few minutes later, past endless lines of porters and around a dark pool of something highly suspect, Ayika arrived at a familiar berth. Here beside a steamship a group of longshoremen were pulling mightily at a thick rope to free it from a tangled pile of wooden crates. The crates creaked in protestation.

One man in a conical straw hat stood off to the side screaming at them.

"Pull, you useless clods!" he yelled. "Li, if I ever find what motherless idiot taught you your knots I'm going to do my own practice with his gizzard!" His words were strong and clear despite the scar that curled under his lower lip. The dockworkers gave another effort at pulling the rope with the looks of those embarked on a clearly doomed enterprise.

The foreman continued to yell, "If we have to cut that line I'm going to have you scum splicing till the moon sets! See that I... And where under the sky are you going?!"

The tallest of the workers, a young man built like a bull in a shirtless vest, had left the group and was staring in a distant manner at the pile. Oblivious to the curses of his foreman he now began to climb up onto the boxes themselves. For a moment he just stood frozen on the top, a broad shouldered silhouette against the hazy sky as he looked down at the tangled ropes and crates, but then that instant snapped and he called down to the other men.

"I think I've got this figured, pass the line up to me!"

As the other longshoremen gathered up their twined adversary, this young man leaned down and shielded his eyes against the sun to peer down into a crack between the crates.

"Get down off there!" his supervisor yelled as the young man stood again, taking the problem rope in one hand. "You're just going to... At least wait until you got help up there! Sun, Lasu, get scrambling!"

"No, it's ok." The young man shifted his grip on the hempen line while standing on top of the crate pile. That rope was as thick as Ayika's arm but he handled it in his off hand without a hint of effort. "We were just going at it from the wrong angle." With that, he set his feet against the planks of the top crates and began to pull. His muscles bulged beneath his short laborer's vest and his face grew red with effort. His fellow workers moved to help but before they could get to him the young man gave a slight stumble and the rope anticlimactically slackened as it came free.

The workers turned at the sound of clapping to see Ayika leaning against a bollard-post next to the harbor street. She got nods of recognition from many of the workers as she walked in towards the scene of the battle holding the Bao brothers' lunch package. They were all used to seeing Ayika up here on the docks. The problem of the tangled crates resolved, longshoreman got about their business of unloading the ship. Well, most of them did.

"Hey, Xiaobao!" one called out, and gestured over at Ayika. "How do I sign up for that delivery service? You can keep the lunch but you best be sharing those clams!" He then laughed at his own racy joke.

Maolin 'Xiaobao' Bao, the tall young man who had just jumped down from on top the stubborn pile of cargo, turned red and started to sputter something. However, Ayika was quicker and yelled back over her shoulder:

"That you, Chouyu? I thought you were still in the market lockup for trying to feed your oyster to the sheep!"

The man's answering laugh just made Xiaobao darken another shade. Chouyu slapped his knee and called back, "That's a good wharf rat! Hey, tell your pop I'm still looking to deck with him some night!"

With that he climbed back up the ramp and vanished over the gunwale of the ship.

Xiaobao smiled ruefully as Ayika passed him the lunch package, only craning her neck a little to look up at him. He quite rudely persisted in being much taller than her. "You know," Xiaobao said. "I'd say something to them about talking like that... But, well, you get how it is with-"

"Just take your food, moron," Ayika replied with a grin. Old Chouyu was hardly the worst she'd hear today. She affected an exaggerated posh accent. "Oh yes, I have never in all my years heard such dreadful language upon my fair ears. I was definitely not raised in the Bed and thus I need constant protecting from the dirty world, mister man." She fluttered her eyelashes.

Xiaobao just laughed and when she punched him in the side it was like hitting a slab of beef. Flexing her fingers, Ayika looked around at the men working nearby and noticed something; one brother was missing.

"Hey," she said. "Where's Xinfei? Mom packed for both of you."

At this Xiaobao looked slightly guilty. "Well, you see, last night he came to me saying he had-"

"Oh hell," Ayika said, sinking her head in exasperation. "Let me guess, he had a 'sure-fire product'. That's the third scheme this month and he's back here within two days each time. I swear, you two are lucky that Mister Gaoli wants to take care of you guys enough to hold his job."

As soon as she said it she knew she had phrased that very wrong. Some memories were always raw. "Wait, no I mean-"

"Nah, I got you." But Xiaobao was smiling a little less as he continued, "Yeah, Xinfei's got a bunch of little boxes with Fire Nation stamps on the lids. He says a man told him these things can let you summon flames like a fire bender, so he's headed up into the city to try and sell them. By now I just try to make sure he doesn't have too much money on him at any time. And keep it out of our mom's hands. She'd just give it to him if he asked."

He shook his head but then he looked smiled and looked over at Ayika. "Hey, make sure to thank your ma for me tonight. You should be getting on anyways, off to serve the all the fancy lords and ladies," he finished with a slight grin.

This time he dodged her punch. In retaliation he leaned an elbow down on her shoulder, using her as a perfectly sized armrest. "Shut up," Ayika grumbled as she rolled her eyes up at him. "I'll try to find your idiot brother if I get a chance."

As she walked off, Xiaobao yelled one last thing. "Hey, watch out when you get by the Exclusion. I heard that there's a chance some idiot university boys are going to try and do something over that way."

Ayika waved behind her and quickened her pace. Xiaobao sighed as she disappeared through the crowd. Ayika had never been one for walking away from danger. As Xiaobao turned back to the water, stretching his shoulders before returning to work, he heard someone spit on the street and a dim growl of "Islanders' slaves". He swiveled back but he couldn't make out which of the hundreds of passing people that might have been.

Even down here, where thousands of livelihoods depended on trade there were still those who feared and resented everything outside the walls. Xiaobao had yet to see any "cultural degradation" but even he had to admit that many of these crates he unloaded were filled with products once made here in the city.

Several blocks away, Ayika grumbled to herself. Perfect, more nationalist university brats. Why couldn't those rich boys stay in their mansions instead of making their way all the way out to her town? She personally suspected those students needed to keep the glue pots a bit farther from their noses based on how many of those stupid protest posters they put up everywhere. There were always rumors that they were about to do something bigger than just defacing walls and loitering in tea shops; all likely started, Ayika thought, by the boys themselves.

She made her way down the street alongside a crowded canal. Long watercraft slid along beside her, guided by pilots swaying their single rear oar from side to side, they themselves often nearly buried behind piles of cargo. The street passed by a boarded up temple to the Kuang River spirit, and a little farther on a half-destroyed building in the middle of the block. Ayika glanced over at that site, the structure had been completely intact just yesterday. Now huge spikes of twisted stone jutted up from the earth through shattered timbers as though the rock had melted suddenly decided to flow like water. Ayika skipped past the line of men piling wood scraps into a cart and quickened her pace. Benders were always good at causing destruction, and there was rarely any good to come from asking why.

As Ayika left the docks, the buildings became more ornate and the stone bridges arching over the canals gained elaborate carvings. Of course this was still Kuang Harbor but the golden comb-over was nice, nevertheless. There were tea houses with painted screens, drinking houses with gilt signs, and brothels filled with the faint sound of instruments and the swish of silk. Ayika supposed there was a measure of insecurity in this gaudiness, and as she rounded a corner in the path she confronted the explanation.

Ahead, an intersections of canals marked off a wide rectangular moat in the middle of the waterlogged town. The green surface was broken by hundreds of small boats scuttling back and forth like water-striders. Yet despite all the commercial activity at river level, on this block the buildings were broken by no doors or windows. No citizen of the Kingdoms wanted to be reminded about the embarrassment that rose up across that water. The lights and towers of the Foreign Exclusionary District smiled back uncaringly; an island of alien red spires and gold mansions set down in the Earth Kingdoms' greatest city.

Denied room to expand outwards the Islanders had instead built up. Underneath that forest of tall towers with curling eaves, in those tight streets and soaring walkways, music and light blazed in constant excess. At times Ayika could almost sympathize with protest posters that continually appeared on the walls around here. Even now she passed a tired old man with a scraper and a cart removing a fresh crop of paper outrage from white plaster.

The poster appeared to say, " _Strength to the People! Resist Foreigners!_ " Or at least it probably had to begin with. Now after the old man's efforts against the glue the remaining fragments of characters seemed to announce something like, " _Give the Foreigners a Good Nap!_ " which while considerate, was probably not the author's intent. Beyond, a line of similar painted proclamations stretched along the walls facing the water, shouting inken words in broad black characters across at those alien towers. Even ink was threatening when painted by ten thousand furious hands.

Striving to shake matters both international and lexicographical from her head, Ayika moved past the Exclusion moat and quickened her pace. However, soon the foot traffic slowed to a rate that was ridiculous even for Kuang Harbor. A block further it became a solid human wall.

Ayika rose up on her toes, which brought her up to about average local height, but unfortunately just revealed more heads in front of her. The air was thick with waiting and where the crowd managed some movement it revealed a palpable tension rising like a flock of disturbed sparrows. Up ahead, the Temple Street intersection was entirely blocked by uniformed city guards.

In Ayika's experience, the only Kuang Harbor denizens who stood near a guard were already in cuffs. However, today the field of repulsion seemed to have failed and while none of the pedestrians were touching any part of a green uniform, a single deep breath on a guard's part would land half a dozen counts of accosting a watchman on the docket. Mystifyingly, behind them Temple Street was completely empty.

"All right, what gives?" Ayika said, after squeezing and pushing and elbowing her way to the front of the pack. She glared up at a guard and tried to downplay the fact that with the crowd behind her she was almost pressed against his chest. "Some of us have to get to work. You guys planning on nabbing the whole town?"

This just earned her a growl and a shove against another pedestrian who had not bathed in far too long. They tried to push her back again but Ayika instead spun and slid sidewise across the front of the mob. She honed in on the next guard, a smooth cheeked young man who kept reaching up to check that the folded fabric fan on his uniform hat was still right.

This time Ayika pitched her voice up to sickeningly sweet and clutched her hands in front of her. "Sorry officer, but do you know when we will be able to get by to the tram station? I'm terribly afraid of being late."

The young guard shrugged with a small measure of embarrassment. "Sorry miss, can't say."

Inwardly, Ayika sighed. Of course the man responded to the silk and lilies voice.

He said, "Yeah, 'fraid Temple Street's closed all the way from the Exclusion bridge. Apparently, the other lot didn't have enough room on their own roads so the king granted permits rather than risk upsetting the spirits. The way should be open soon but I couldn't tell you exactly when."

Ayika wasn't mollified. "What are you talking about: spirits? What could be so important that you close down all of Temple Street?"

She felt a jab in her back. An old man behind her grumbled, "Mouthy tribals don't know a damn thing. You live in a tree, girl? The Ambassador's dead. This is his funeral walk."

Ayika spun to deliver some insults of her own when those words sank in. Naruhama, the Fire Nation's ambassador to the Kingdoms was dead. Suddenly the indistinct mutters of the crowd separated into audible words. Angry words like "Foreigners", "War", "Corrupt", "Spirits", and again "Foreigners".

Keenly feeling her skin color, Ayika felt herself freeze. She had been born in this city, and sometimes she forgot that didn't make her a native. That was dangerous to forget. Somewhere in the distance down the street she started to hear the rhythmic stamping of approaching feet. City folk weren't necessarily known for their geographical aptitude or tough concepts like foreigners coming in two varieties. People were staring at her. She needed to move. Suddenly a shift in the wind brought a dense cloud of incense smoke down the street.

" _Hai_!"

A wordless shout rolled out from down the street and six female dancers burst around the corner trailing blue smoke. The women landed in perfect synchronicity, lithe figures dressed in gauzy foreign swaths of pink and red. Their dance was intense and sharp, smooth undulations changing to violent jabs in a blink. Ayika caught her breath as they leaped again, impossibly far, alighting with the fierceness of a striking eagle. It was like watching fire dance.

The dancers spun again and cymbals crashed, small disks of metal tied to the inside of their knees struck together with each leap and lunge. Behind them emerged a number of stately Islander men with narrow black beards and long dark crimson robes. They were in orderly rows and those at the edges of the group held balls of floating flame hovering magically above their hands. The fires they held shone like bright planets.

Then the heart of the parade emerged. There were more torches and incense, more dancers and figures in dark robes, and held above it all was a small pavilion, a covered sedan chair born aloft by twelve strong men. Gauzy red curtains hung around it and ribbons drifted in the night air behind it. The canopy glittered with dark feathers.

As Ayika stared, a single breath of wind brushed the torch flames and lifted aside that thin curtain for a moment. Inside the palanquin was the vague shape of a seated figure, knees clutched in front, but all over wrapped in a thick brown cloth, a solid mass of fiber and knots. Above its chest there sat a wooden mask, massive and ornate, staring out with a powerful intensity. It was a human body, prepared for some unknown ritual.

"Ambassador Naruhama," Ayika whispered.

That bundle was what remained the most powerful foreigner in the entire city. He was the man who had shaped the post-war world; Ayika's entire young life. Next to the pageantry of the funeral procession, his simple cloth-wrapped body seemed oddly humble. Then Ayika felt her eyes catch on the mask. As she stared at the stern features wrote in dark wood it seemed she could sense something strange about it, like an echo of embers burning in the distance. It felt like something was wrong behind the air. Distantly, Ayika wondered how the Westerners' guardian spirits knew how to find them all the way over here in this distant land. Or did the foreigners simply make new ones?

Then the breeze faded and the curtain fell back into place, turning the grotesque shape back into a vague silhouette. A moment later the tail end of the procession crossed the intersection and passed back out of sight behind the yellow-roofed temples.

The instant the city guards stepped back, the waiting crowd surged as the stalled momentum burst forth. Ayika felt the same burst of energy but for some reason she didn't move. She stood there, buffeted by people pushing past her in both directions, and stared at the empty space behind the departed palanquin. Suddenly she felt a chill, despite the late summer heat. The ambassador was dead and it seemed like the Impenetrable City was already trembling. Change was coming, for good or ill.

Ayika shook her head. It was already getting uncomfortably late so she started to really hustle towards the tram. After just a few blocks the station loomed across like a truncated stone ziggurat summited by a large canopy. An elevated stone track shot off from that platform, one end of one of the city's vast web, looking like a network of aqueducts which flowed the wrong way. Those pre-mechanical bender-powered trams were the only thing that allowed this massive city to feed itself. Without them all those nobles in the distant city center would probably starve in a day.

Ayika rushed up the long stone steps with her city passport held high. The loader-men were already moving off the freight car, she only had a few moments. She ran past the airy noble-class car and began frantically examining the steerage compartments for a space. A frantic glance over her shoulder showed the government's adept earth benders sauntering out of their break rooms, the yellow royal seals glittering on their green uniforms.

Ayika seized the nearest open door and shoved herself into the pressed mass of commuters. The crowd resisted but she took advantage of her lack of height to use her shoulders at chest level. People loudly complained and for an instant Ayika thought the ensconced democracy was going to succeed at pushing her out but then the car shook slightly on its rollers. The earth benders were on board.

Behind these ornate cars weathered by decades of constant use, the earth bender adepts settled on their perches and their magic awoke in response to each gesture, mimicking the motion of their muscles. They drew their fists down to their hips and planted their feet. Then both of them punched out with a grunt and in response the grinding, scraping, rattling conveyance rumbled into action. They were off, all carried through the air on the vaulted trackway of pale, weather-stained stone above the sea of tile roofs.

The harbor town with its lace of green canals passed below as the red Exclusion towers were left behind. To the left, lay that muddy river corpse called the Bed with all the things and people that the official citizenry would rather not consider. Behind that was the towering city wall and its great entrance gate. From up here it looked like it all fit together. That made it easier to hope that it did.

Ayika was in a fine position to enjoy these sights as her struggles to find a seat in the tram had secured space only for her seat. Most of her front half hung out a window where Ayika sighed wearily as she braced her arms on the outside of the car. A noise from above proved to be a gaggle of urchins riding for free on the roof, an illegal decision which right now appeared very appealing to someone who could feel what she hoped was only a bag of rice pressed against her rear. There was talk in town that some Islander named Miohuito wanted to make new, faster trams powered by steam engines, but with the speed things changed in this country that would be next century at best.

A wordless cry rose from the earth benders above the clattering din and Ayika looked up to see the Farmer's Wall painted across the horizon. The tram rode along level with the rooftops of the town, above the slowly grinding mass of carts and people flowing towards the city gate, but the wall still seemed to be infinitely tall above. As the train raced forward, Ayika felt like she was falling from the sky towards the ground, plummeting down at a pinprick hole. She pressed back against the side of the tram car and held her breath as the sky was abruptly swallowed by the tunnel mouth. The blackness stretched on, and as always her lungs gave out before the dark. So she burst gasping into the light and into the Impenetrable City.

The greatest settlement of mankind was something beyond comprehension, it could only be perceived in parts. Before her was the Lower Ring where houses and compounds blended with markets, squares, temples, inns, houses, workshops, and apartments on and on in a never ending sea of humanity. Smoke rose from factories, beasts pawed the ground, boats navigated narrow waterways to form a tapestry that was less a construct man and more a terrain type, rising from the laws of nature just like a mountain range or a rolling plain.

Ayika felt a grin tug at the corner of her mouth. Grandma Aka used to say that all things were connected by the spirit world. That everything had a soul and all souls were a part of the same magic of the world, both when they were alive and while they were dead; whether they were humans or gods. Everything served a role in the endless cycle of balance. Ayika breathed in the rushing wind as she looked out over a web of rooftops and chimneys that stretched for kilometers of unending activity. She could believe that here. This city was more alive than any priest could imagine, and it was a god she'd be glad to worship.

After half an hour, the rocking, grinding tram neared a second ring-wall deep in the city, this one nearly as high as the first. Past that, in the Middle Ring the buildings were at once smaller, being private residences instead of apartments, and more spread about, with most having small gardens surrounding them. Then, finally, the tram cars ground to a halt above a neat city square.

Out on the station platform, Ayika took one more steadying breath and turned to cast a glance off at the distant artificial plateau of the third ring. That was the Noble's Wall, beyond which the golden-blooded lived with their vast mansions and expansive grounds. Somewhere even further beyond that lay the great palace of the Earth King, the center of this city as the city was the center of the world. Ayika turned away from the Noble's Wall with a snort. For herself, she was content for all that sort to hide away, the lesser breed of condescension she already dealt with daily was plenty sufficient. With a sigh, she abandoned the vista down the long steps back to the busy city streets and the school where she worked.

...


	4. Class

...

The thoroughly named _Ba Sing Se Legacy School for Young Ladies_ stood just off a small brick-paved square. The large two-story building was topped with soot-darkened tiles and fronted by a pillared gate gleaming with rigorously applied green paint that strove to disguise the aging wood beneath. Ayika skirted past the main entrance and around the school's outer wall towards the servants entrance. Across the street she saw a small crowd of people loitering restlessly in front of a row of narrow dark residences and unsuccessful boutiques. Another day and still the anti-foreigner protesters continued to come.

Tracing her hand along the stones of the compound wall, Ayika felt scraps of paper and residue of glue from hastily ripped down bills or posters. She sighed as she tugged open the little side gate. The headmaster had assured his workers that the protesters would soon quiet down but today those troublemakers appeared to have received reinforcements. So much difficulty, all for hiring one teacher who was willing to say some kind words about the Fire Nation.

Inside the school's cramped scullery, the other servant girls were all bustling through the preparations of the day. The few who could spare the time sent a few dirty looks Ayika's way over her late arrival. Ignoring those glares she removed her boots, slid into a pair of neat grey slippers, and quickly made her way to the little alcove in the corner that served as their changing room, beginning to pull off her street clothes as she moved. Two other latecomers were already squeezed in there, twisting each-others' hair into the regulation school-staff bun.

Ayika's green and grey uniform dress was halfway over her head when a rough and authoritative voice rang through the crowded space. "Hop to it, girls! We've got bare an hour 'till the little ladies arrive and half my staff apparently decided to sleep it in! Frizzy-Hair, has the dusky sluggard shown up yet?"

Frantically tying the uniform's sash above her hips, Ayika cast a desperate look at the other two tardy girls, pleading for some small solidarity against a woman who refused to learn the names of any of her workers. For half a second Ayika thought that their answering smiles were good news until they both picked up nearby trays and dashed out in a flurry of pretend work.

One of them said, "Oh Mrs Jiangsu, we were waiting for her for forever, but she just snuck in right before you got here."

Five levels of hell would not be enough to effect their punishment. Unfortunately, Ayika's problem was now less metaphysical and more immediate. A matronly monolith advanced, one who already held a remarkably dim view of the young Tribal girl's character.

Ayika snapped up into a facsimile of attention before the head of staff. "Mrs Jiangsu! It's true, I was a few minutes past when I usually arrive. The tram from Kuang Harbor must have run slower today. Maybe the funeral procession messed something up or- _"_

"Can it, Dusky," Jiangsu replied, already turning to look around the room as if her attention deserved to be elsewhere. "I don't really care if you had your own funeral _,_ when what I need is a girl out in the halls polishing the woodwork. So hop to it without taking the time to flap your yap for once now so help me are we clear?" This was delivered in a seemingly impossible mixture of malice and unconcern that equally disregarded the addressee and punctuation.

Ayika widened her eyes in disbelief and gestured down at her waist sash which she now saw was the wrong way out. "But I've just got on my servers uniform! How am I supposed to keep it from being mussed if I'm crawling around the place with polish?" There was a touch of panic in her voice. The penalties for stained uniforms were quite steep, supposedly to 'discourage sloppiness'.

Mrs Jiangsu's watery, malevolent squint turned back and Ayika involuntarily swallowed as though trying to recapture those escaped sentences. Mrs Jiangsu bore what on her passed for a smile. "I fail, girl, to see how that is my concern. Out with you now!"

There were scattered titters from across the scullery as Ayika gathered up the supplies and rushed out into the main halls. In the back of her mind, she brooded that her presence at least seemed to be a unifying force for the rest of the native blood servants. That gave her something to dwell on as found herself laboring with rolled up sleeves over screens and banisters and pillars in the impossible task of disguising decades of schoolhouse wear with a clean shine.

The building that the _Legacy School for Young Ladies_ occupied had once been the elegantly apportioned city house of some wealthy trader or minor government functionary but it had seen many years and several owners since that period. The slow decline of this neighborhood had been mirrored in the slow increase of well disguised chips and scrapes in the woodwork as money for replacements had evaporated. So the descent had gone on until the property fell within the budget of an ambitious but unsuccessful university graduate; a man who had hoped that a school for young ladies of means but no name would salve the disappointment of his failure to secure a government appointment. The man himself, Headmaster Gang, could always be seen sneaking around his school stealing panicked glances towards every corner, as though any unobserved section would immediately descend into ruin.

It was Mister Gang's flights of ambitious fancy that saved Ayika now. The headmaster, on one of his consistently unsurprising surprise inspections, decided it would be unbecoming for the the sole employee 'of noticeable ethnicity' to be the only visible laborer. It was this same desire for cosmopolitan credentials that had allowed a well-spoken, when she wished to be, girl of the Water Tribe to achieve employment here to begin with. Ayika had secured her post with an interview and had also managed to secure the immediate ire of all those other working city-girls who had schemed long and hard for such a cushy job.

Ayika took the headmaster's reassignment gladly and began manning the tea station on by the classrooms on the second floor. After the initial flurry of adjusting window screens to let in air but block any breeze that might ruffle papers and placing an extra desk for a new student, her job was to demurely welcome the students and insure a steady supply of full tea cups. Since the older girls had by that point in their education realized that leaving for the lavatory during a teacher's lecture was strongly frowned on, this was very light work. This allowed Ayika to just linger in a corner with her perfunctory teapot as she listened to the lectures themselves.

Most of her fellow workers considered the school to be a great job because Mister Gang's pursuit of an aristocratic appearance had left the building rather overstaffed, giving the servants plenty of free time for gossip in the back rooms. They saw Ayika's refusal to join in these conclaves as stubbornness, or some sort of primitive superstition. However, Ayika loved simply being near the classrooms.

Back in the Bed, she'd attended her back-alley schoolmaster longer than most of the children who'd bothered at all. She'd only ceased begging coppers off her mother when at nine she could no longer spare the time with her hours in the maid-service; by the time she returned from work the ragged writing-master was inevitably sunk deep in his bottle. As a consequence, Ayika could read better than anyone on her street though her brushwork had never advanced beyond a scrawl of smudged characters. However, here at the school she had discovered something beyond mere technical skills; she had found education.

Ayika stood hidden by the carved wooden screen in the corner, her uniform finally put to rights, listening to her favorite teacher speak. Professor Lizhen was a small grey-haired man, prone to fiddling with things in his hands as he listened or thought. One might think him meek until he began to speak on his subjects of passion. He was brilliant, kind to the servants, and even tried to remember Ayika's name instead of just calling her 'the tribal girl'.

Lizhen called himself a seeker of truth in all forms and places. It was a policy that, when combined with a tendency to publicly advocate those truths, explained his current service at such an institution so diminished from his former post at the Royal University.

At the moment Ayika could hear Lizhen treading back and forth behind his desk before his slightly awestruck students. His manner of teaching history was so far removed from the memorization of titles and names that had thus far filled their educational history that those students who weren't enraptured still maintained careful attention out of fear they were somehow missing the expected rote material. From her half-hidden position behind the wood screen Ayika could almost imagine she was one of those girls too.

"Now, there is of course merit to this author's analysis of the Fire Lords and how they influenced the course of the War," Professor Lizhen continued his lecture, flicking down the prepared readings onto the desk with a decisive slap. "However, it is my observation that behind those crowned men there lies a certain inevitability to the conflict that the esteemed and _government approved_ author simply does not give proper weight to."

Ayika silently grinned at the uncomfortable shifting that always accompanied the professor's forays into his trademarked taboo theses. Peeking out between the carved patterns she could see the varied reactions: a nervous twitchiness from the girls who expected government agents to burst in at any moment, a relaxed laying down of brushes from those who had realized that Lizhen would not be permitted to place his own theories on the approved tests, and from the back of the room the sound of the new student's chair scooting forward in eager anticipation.

Now that he'd left the official material, Professor Lizhen began to hit his stride, gesturing broadly at each important point as though he was still addressing the university hall where he had until lately held sway.

"Back before the First Aggression, that nation of newly unified islands looked out to see a world where our kingdoms filled their horizon. The Fire Nation had been reborn in the crucible of industry and was ready to grow, but everything had already been claimed. The following expansion might be seen as the natural readjustment of the world to a new balance of power. Our culture's time of ascendancy gave way to another's, just as long ago the raiding Water Tribes' time had given way to the growing might of our Earth Kingdoms." Ayika couldn't help but wear a smirk at hearing of her own ethnicity's ancient glory days.

Lizhen no longer seemed to see the small classroom in front of him. His voice projected to some distant focus that here had to lay half way across the street outside. "This balance of forces continues into the spirit world. In the West, their spirituality was reformed and so their guardian spirits, their local gods of change and transformation, are honored by all. Here, our own traditions have begun to fight our society, rather than encourage its growth. So our gods are forgotten as they fall into irrelevance. We must take this as a warning. The spirit world is a mirror that changes even what it reflects. To forget it is to forget half the universe."

There was a break in the professor's oration as Lizhen began to shuffle amongst the papers of his desk for some chart or map, a task which frequently took inordinately long due to his habit of fiddling with everything he held. In this pause one of the students hesitantly began to raise her hand to ask a question, a modernist classroom custom that at this school was only tolerated by Professor Wen. The professor interrupted his search with delight as he saw the motion and gestured for her to stand.

"Yes, Miss Gaoli?"

Lili Gaoli, normally an incredibly energetic if not particularly diligent student, was now wilting under this unusual teaching method. Hidden, Ayika could grin bit at her discomfort. Lili was tall, thin, pretty, and generally insufferable. Mister Gaoli's company had been a good employer to the Bao brothers but everything she'd seen about the boss's daughter Lili cemented her in Ayika's mind as a rich brat.

Lili began, "Teacher Wen, if the Islanders had their… That is, if they were on top during the long war because of their machines and boats and it's a cycle, then when we won the war wouldn't that mean that they were below us again? Except I know that you've been saying that our government should learn from the Islander's culture and their relationship with the spirits and...I mean that you, I heard..." At that point her bravery gave out and her legs folded her back down into her seat, her face red and flustered.

Lizhen didn't seem to notice her stammering delivery at all and instead leapt into an enthusiastic answer. "An excellent question, Miss Gaoli! Yes, in the light of victory my proposed reforms to adopt Western methods and practices must seem odd indeed. But as for the question you asked I have another of my own..." And at this moment he placed his normally trembling hands down firm on the desk. "Why do you say that we won the war?"

There was another flurry of reactions ranging from a few jaded sighs, to a flock of outraged words dying on young lips, and one poorly masked grin from the new student in the back row. Several hands shot up but this time Lizhen waved them down.

"Yes, yes. I know that was needlessly dramatic, but it is necessary to illustrate the danger of assumptions. Yes, the Fire Nation's armies withdrew. But why did this happen? Was there a great battle our kingdoms won, some grand stratagem? No, at best we held our ground. The Avatar did great things but in the end the decision to end the war was made by those who first started it, with a palace coup and a new Fire Lord on their throne. So while our country still smoldered, the other side simply pocketed their winnings and changed the rules of the game. We cannot allow ourselves to fall to unjustified hubris."

"Even here at home, you only have to look in an import shop to see that the day of the Fire Nation's culture is not over. I've seen many of you girls wearing their latest fashions even this week. No, the West is as strong as ever because they have looked to the future and thus molded it. They have allied with their national spirits. But the secrets of their success are things that we can easily duplicate here."

Lili had been slowly gathering confidence from the shared supportive looks from the girls around her. Ayika scowled at the little hand signs they shared from the half hidden position under their low desks. Then Lili's hand rose back up, and was rewarded by Professor Lizhen with a nod.

She stood and smoothed her dress with the haughtiness that only a self-confident teenager who had read a single book about politics can produce. Lili Gaoli then began, "But, really isn't the lesson we can learn from their culture what mistakes to avoid? Even without a big defeat by our armies, the Fire Nation couldn't keep together enough to continue the war, so they degenerated back to being merchants. That had got to be a spiritual decline of some sort. Even if we didn't strictly win..." By the sound of it that was a enormous concession. "... _they_ still lost."

She sat back down clearly proud of the argument which was obviously going to make the professor have to go and reshape his theories according to the revelations of a fifteen year old girl.

Behind the screen Ayika scowled at the insolence but Professor Lizhen simply beamed. "Soundly reasoned, Miss Gaoli!" he smiled. "And many authors have made that point, although I'm not sure your father would like to hear you belittling his merchantine profession."

There was a snort of laughter from the back of the class but Lili's venomous searching glares found no culprit.

Lizhen continued without pause, "And on the message of opening our minds to other views of thought, we here have a unique opportunity today! Miss Miohuito?"

All the student's sleek and neatly coiffed heads turned as one to face the rear of the classroom. The new girl, until now leaning forward on her desk with a lazy smirk, was now wearing a smile frozen by this sudden and unexpected attention.

Professor Lizhen noticed none of these details, still soaring in the rapturous world of academic debate. He eagerly gestured for the new student to rise, which she did, slowly. "Yes, Miss Mizumi Miohuito, if you would be so kind. I know this is your first day with us but we would all be fascinated to hear your unique perspective. In your personal experience how is the end of the wars considered today back at your home in the Fire Nation?"

That girl was an Islander? Ayika pressed her eye against a hole in the carved screen. Living in the Bed had given her a very liberal view of what appearance constituted an average citizen of the Earth Kingdoms, but now that she was pressed the differences jumped out at her. This girl's eyes were a dark amber and her hair was a bit different from the classical Earth Kingdoms black, instead shaded with a color like silken rust in her proscribed bun and the straight locks that fell to frame her face. Her cheeks now flushed with embarrassment in a color that suggested her tanned skin was backed by ripe grain rather than blood. However, she stood resolutely at her desk.

"Of course Teacher Wen, I am pleased to." Mizumi's voice was calm under the rolling buzz of her accent but from Ayika's angle she could see her knees shaking slightly under her dress. The poor girl straightened into what resembled a military posture with her hands behind her back and spoke pleasantly, her eyes locked onto Professor Wen.

Mizumi said, "There are of course those who disapprove of Fire Lord Zuko agreeing to make peace with your Earth King when victory was at hand, particularly those of the military lineages. However, most people know that the nation is doing much better without having to pay for constant war. The former colonies sell us materials as easily as when they were sworn to the Fire Lord, and now the military does not requisition it all. Finally, Ba Sing Se is more valuable as a customer than as a subject or a pile of cinders, even if we have to come as _merchants_ this time." Her rigid stance was broken briefly to flash a vindictive smile at the Gaoli girl, who fumed back while clenching her hands at her desk.

Ayika wondered about that. As soon as Lili had heard Mizumi's name there was something in her expression beyond politics. Something that made Lili take special offense. Did they know each other somehow? Lili was now writing on her notepaper with furious speed. Mizumi made a small bow to Professor Lizhen and sat back down, fussing with her skirt like someone who was used to wearing less restrictive clothing.

The rest of the students also didn't appear like receiving lecture from a foreigner and even Lizhen was beginning to perceive that this topic was stirring up some dangerous emotions.

He coughed softly. "Yes, well the economic dominance in the west coast territories is unquestionable but-"

Lili was back up on her feet, shooting a glance down at a few notes she had scrawled. Slightly overwhelmed, Lizhen motioned for her to speak, which she began to do so before he had completely raised his hand. Lili presented to the class a winning smile with all the friendliness of a manticore.

"I'd like to thank my classmate for sharing her delightful experience in a foreign culture." Foreign was pronounced like the name of a puppy that had done something embarrassing on a carpet. "But, Professor, didn't you say that we should examine the source when determining the truth? That essay we read by..." She glanced downward at her notes. "...official Professor Ma, wrote that their government heavily edits their school materials. There are simple facts showing that we won, like how the numbers and talent of the Islander sorcerers declined. I mean, they had to draft their women into the military."

The Islander girl snapped back on her feet the instant her newfound opponent was seated. Professor Lizhen just blinked rapidly at this sudden enthusiasm, which the new student decided to take as permission. Mizumi said, "I welcome my new friend, and thank her for pointing out the cultural error of deciding that women have a brain between their ears. I particularly welcome the personal evidence she demonstrates." Snickers and scowls showed the hit had landed. "For facts of decline, I would love to read what must be a very detailed account of this Kingdom's execution and mutilation of my nation's fire benders."

Lizhen could see that this was out of hand and tried clearing his throat repeatedly to attract the lost attention of his class, but Lili Gaoli was already up and speaking, not even sparing a moment to brush aside the stray hairs that had slipped out of her elegantly pinned hairdo. "I'd be happy to share some sources with my lovely classmate. Maybe they got lost amongst the paperwork for their colonial slave labor camps. Of course, all those were regrettable mistakes that must happen when their so-called priests were fighting under command of their mad god-king!"

This time Mizumi snapped up from her seat with such speed that her teacup made a rattling journey towards the edge of the desk before it reconsidered. She was vibrating with the outrage of someone arguing with a well researched idiot, wishing they could remember more pithy facts to support the obvious truth. She made her attempt anyway, command of the language briefly melting under frustration.

"Yes, just as no one in this city could being blamed for their secret police who practiced of execution innocent civilians!"

Across the room Lili was ready for more, but the foreign girl slammed her hands down on the desk with the ceramic rattling of her shifting teacup. "And now I believe that we should give our attention back to our teacher so that we can hear from someone who actually knows something! Thank you, Teacher!"

Mizumi crisply bowed and folded down heavily in the silence that followed, punctuated by a gentle tinkling crash as her cup finally took its threatened plunge.

Ayika shook herself out of the spectators' daze and realized that the broken cup meant she actually had a job to do. As she scooted over she heard Professor Lizhen clear his throat once again.

"Ahm, uh yes. Thank you girls for your...impassioned input. I think now might be a good time to start writing your, um, essays for the day. First, I want you to get out your..."

As Ayika knelt down beside the desk to gather up the cup shards in a rag, she glanced up. Mizumi's eyes were locked forward on the professor, very deliberately not looking at the quiet whispers fluttering in the other corners of the room. The joints that gripped her ink brush were white and vibrating, but under the anger there was a quiet despair. Suddenly those amber eyes met Ayika's own and she hurriedly looked down, mopping up the tea spill as quickly as she could. Somehow being that close to Mizumi felt like spying at an actor behind the curtain.

When she returned to her post, Ayika cast a look back and saw Mizumi staring fixedly in her direction. From where she stood, Ayika couldn't tell if the girl was looking at Professor Lizhen or at her through the carved wood behind him. Ayika quietly left through the servant's door and motioned to the other servant who was leaning against the wall by the maids' station, signaling about the wet rag in her hand and her need to swap out of that room for a moment. She was rewarded with a dirty look, but then again when was she not.

As she dumped the cup shards in a bucket, Ayika glanced out one of the tiny ventilation windows. It overlooked the street since the actual classrooms would never dare to open to anything but one of the two small yet elegant courtyards in the middle of the school compound. Outside, the crowd of grumbling nationalists had spilled out of the dim cafes and there were now furtive knots loitering in the side alleys as well. As she watched, one of the men noticed her looking down and tossed a bit of rubbish in the general direction of the school with vague malice.

Ayika made a rude hand gesture in their direction and was rewarded with an equally rude invective about foreigners. Ayika heard that Professor Lizhen had never been married and though she loved the man, the ease with which ill feeling seemed to spring up around him did appear to offer an explanation. For all his study of spirits, he was perhaps overly optimistic in his assessments of the human spirit. Ayika swung the window slats shut with a click.

...


	5. Gardener

...

At any job there is always a task that isn't exactly strenuous or difficult but still grates on every worker's nerve; that final straw between dutiful productivity and locking oneself in the head office with a lead pipe and a couple of hostages. Fortunately, with equal inevitability there will arise a rank of employees who exist solely to deal with these annoyances. For the last year at the _Ba Sing Se Legacy School for Young Ladies_ that employee was Ayika and right now she was dealing with gum.

Chewing gum had struck suddenly and without warning, spreading from some inventive salesman down in one of the hotter Lost Territories to fill a shelf in every shop across the city within a year. Ayika dreamed of one day finding that man and killing him. Though she had never seen a single student holding a package the underside of every surface in the school had still managed to acquire a sticky, rocklike coating. In her heart she suspected demonic intervention.

As the afternoon shadows stretched, Ayika was hard at work instead of savoring the wonderful peace brought on by the end of classes. As she attacked a particularly diabolical specimen wedged inside a crack in the aging wood she contemplated the feasibility of convincing the gum's manufacturer to change the color to match the school's paint. She didn't hear the approaching footsteps until a pair of shoes stopped in front of her.

"Could you direct me to the office of Lizhen Wen." There was a distinct lack of a question mark at the end of that sentence.

Ayika snapped up into a bow as she hid her scraping tool and bag of scraps behind her back. The man before her was dressed in the dark military greens favored by many of the city's older citizens. With his short, grey-flecked hair and lined face he could be someone who'd lived sixty peaceful years, or forty that were very interesting. The scars around his cheeks suggested the latter.

Ayika said, "Of course, sir. Right this way."

The man said nothing in reply. There was something about his manner that suggested that he took a deep interest in everyone around him and that this was not necessarily a good thing. His presence was unsettling, as if something around him was somehow distorting an unheard sound.

Ayika shifted her cleaning tools around to her far hand so they were still hidden as she turned to gesture down the hallway. " _Er_ , you can both come."

That last bit was directed at the beleaguered young man following his master up the stairs, with a large and irregular package he clutched desperately to his chest. He looked put-upon but he also looked like someone who might find a way to be oppressed in an empty room. His master barely seemed to register the young man's existence.

Ayika led the way towards Wen's office, crossing the walkway above one of the school's garden courtyards. As she walked in front, Ayika felt shivers down her spine and had to fight looking behind her. Why was just being near of that man so unsettling? Who was he? She looked back. The master carried himself like an ex-soldier but there was something more that wasn't quite right. Ayika always had a quiet confidence in her intuition. In fact the tension was giving her a headache and prickles across her neck.

As they approached the office she couldn't help feeling worried for Professor Wen, so she decided to risk some questions. Strictly speaking it was not within the scope of her duties to say much more than 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' but this man was suspicious.

"Excuse me," she said, gently. "But could you give me your name? For the guest book, _er_ , registry." That was a lie but it was a believable one. The school had once had such a book until a sufficiently rich parent had complained about having to sign in to see their own daughter.

The man was not amused. "I've already given my name to the doorkeeper and to another servant on the first floor. I feel confident I have successfully introduced myself."

"I'm sorry, but it's, you know, the headmaster. Rules and that," Ayika pleaded.

He looked back down at Ayika and for an instant his eyes communicated something about long experience with ridiculous superiors and rigid orders. The he relaxed imperceptibly and said, "Ma'er. Garden design."

Ayika barely had time to register her own disbelief at this title before he pushed past her. Ma'er strode forward, sliding open Wen's door without permission. This office was smaller than the classrooms, and was nearly filled by a desk, a table, and a few chairs lit by the open window. The far wall was covered with shelves that held Wen's collection of foreign ritual objects, along with other small paintings and sketches from his studies. Professor Lizhen himself was sitting at his desk in his usual state of shuffling through his papers while muttering quietly to himself. At the sound of the door he looked up, surprised that the rest of the world had decided to keep moving while he was busy.

"Ma'er! What are you doing here?"

"Hoping you'd finally come to sense, for one," the intruder growled. He stepped heavily forward towards the desk as he gestured out the professor's window. "I would have thought that getting kicked out of the University might have been enough for you to get the message."

Lizhen narrowed his eyes. The short, shiny-faced teacher at most times seemed as steady as a kite on a gusty day but now Ayika could see the steel that hid beneath. "And I suppose you're here on your _garden tending_ business? Well, I have will have to tell you that I am quite content with my chosen course of action. This nation needs someone to say that change does not have to destroy our identity. I'm confidant the city can survive little old me." He lifted a paper he had been reading back up.

It was snatched out of his hands. "Survive," Ma'er said with a bitter twist. "You know that the stalk that sticks up gets chopped down. Especially if it insists on publishing." Ma'er spoke tersely, a restrained furry boiling behind his lips.

Lizhen only smiled and instead slowly got up out of his chair. He turned to look out his open window at the dipping sun that slowly painted the endless sea of roofs.

"Ma'er, you people never could get a grasp on walking out of the shadows. Violence is all you see. Minister Liao's faction fear the downfall of our spirits and our society and they are infecting this city with that fear. But if humans can immigrate than so can spirits, and perhaps our gods can reform as we do. You just have to trust people. You never know, we might even get back some of what we've lost."

Ma'er slammed his hands on the table with a force that sent it rattling. "You damn fool. You have no idea what's happening! You don't see them marshaling their forces! This city is a tinderbox and you want to... want to tell people to be accepting! And the spirits..."

He stepped back and regained his composure with effort "You didn't go to Naruhama's funeral." What might have been a question was once again a statement.

A shadow crossed Wen's brow. "No, Sun Sage Huitzlan was...particular about new formalities of the Ambassador's funeral. Friend as I was to Aza Naruhama, I didn't think attending the procession only to be locked outside the temple was the proper gesture. I wish his smoke safe passage though, as they say in the east." The professor seemed to get even smaller as he sagged. "I heard they were considering deifying him as city-god of the Exclusion. They could do worse."

The visitor repeated a single word, " _Particular_. Yes." He leaned closer to Wen. "We have something new to discuss." Ma'er turned to his assistant, lurking in the corner with his burden. "Tian, leave the package and stand outside."

Ma'er assistant was shaken by this dismissal and looked very unsettled but he complied. After a few false starts he set the wide package down on the office table and heading for the door with great reluctance that Ma'er seemed not to notice.

Professor Lizhen was shaken from his thoughtful revere, once again noticing that there were other people in the room. Smiling, he motioned at Ayika. "Ah, yes. Be a dear, um, Ayika?...and you can go back to your duties, thank you."

She didn't want to leave Lizhen with someone who looked could not have looked less like a gardener in full armor, but nevertheless Ayika nodded to Lizhen and made her way out. She kept her eye to the closing door crack but Ma'er watched steadily for her to leave. Outside, Ayika glared at the nervous Tian whose position so near the doorway meant that she had no chance of eavesdr...accidentally hearing anything.

Ayika clenched her hands at her sides. There was no way she could let that man stay alone with Professor Lizhen after making all those barely veiled threats. Ma'er acted like a Public Safety agent, and a rabid one at that. He was trying to make the professor give up his writing! So what if Lizhen was saying the Kingdoms should emulate the West? He didn't deserve this! Lizhen was the only one at this school who treated her like a normal person.

Ayika paced up and down the corridor quietly growling to herself before she noticed that Tian flinched each time she drew close. She stopped in front of him. The young man seemed very nervous, as if he was standing outside a lion cage where very soon he was going to have to practice amateur dentistry. And he'd been the one giving sweets to the lion in the first place.

Tian tried to lean away from her, however Ayika's compact height and his position against the wall leading him to invent an untested method of leaning upwards. One of his hands was twitching to his side as though searching for something it couldn't find. Ayika edged in closer, glaring at him.

Then she snapped her fingers in epiphany. Ignoring the sharp knock of a startled young man's skull against a cross beam, she turned away from his tumbling collapse.

Wen's office window had been open. Someone standing at the back of the classroom next door would probably be able to hear everything. Ayika wasn't exactly sure what she could do with after hearing but she knew she wasn't about to let that sweet old man get shaken down by the secret police without a friend at least somewhat by his side.

Leaving Tian's tumbled limbs behind her, Ayika made a show of walking down the hallway with the exaggerated normality of one acting 'naturally'. Then three more steps at a skip and she was at the empty classroom. Now to get over to the window and...

Ayika froze. There was already a girl standing in that corner, pressed against the wall near the open window just as Ayika had planned to do.

Mizumi jolted at being discovered, her arms jerking up into what looked like a fighting stance. For a moment Ayika and the Islander girl stared at each other in an identical mixture of outrage and embarrassment. Then, quicker on the draw, Ayika raised an accusatory finger.

"What are you doing?!" she hissed. "Are you spying on-?"

"How dare you!" the foreign girl interrupted before wincing at the volume of her voice. She began with more deliberate calm and precise enunciation."I was merely...exploring the building. This is my first day in attendance so I wanted to familiarize _and why am I explaining myself_?"

Ayika raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Well then, I'd be happy to guide you. This is an unused classroom so if you take yourself towards the exit and continue down the hall you can get to areas where students are actually allowed at this time."

A voice behind her interrupted, "Ugh, is there anywhere in this school that doesn't have the help loafing around?"

Ayika continued to address Mizumi, gesturing over her shoulder. "And you can also take-"

Then she bit down on her breath, chewing and swallowing it as she recognized the new voice. She spun, transferring her glare to a more established obstacle.

Lili Gaoli worked hard within the confines of the school uniform to display the grasp of up-to-the-minute fashion trends that had won her position at the top of the upper girls class game of social combat. Her raven black hair, while tied up into the regulation bun, was secured in place with imported pale coral hair combs that matched her milky skin and projecting from beneath her uniform dress were slippers woven in the slightly curved Islander style that had seized the city recently. As she moved, the tall and slender girl appeared to operate on a slightly faster time frame than those around her, giving her motions a jumpy quality.

As always, she had friends at her side. Well, friends she called them, and so they called themselves, but in the upper crust of the cloak and dagger social world of rich teenagers those words amounted to a ceasefire at best. This week's lifelong companions, Huamei and Jiayi, bracketed their leader like wolves in harness; appreciating the steak while never failing to watch for weakness.

"I swear, my father would be furious if he saw how our tuition is wasted on these servants. You certainly never see them cleaning." Lili addressed this to Ayika without ever showing sign that she recognized her presence. Her mouth continued to work up and down between sentences in the telltale rhythm of gum. Ayika wondered if setting someone on fire with her mind would be grounds for dismissal.

The skinnier of the orbiting sycophants, Huamei, tittered obligingly. "Oh, be fair now! Look at her hands. With skin like that how would she know if they were clean?"

Ayika silently folded her hands behind her back and lowered her head so they couldn't see the rage she thought she'd learned to control. Getting angry now would only risk being fired and would do nothing to make her feel better. This was nothing new.

"Yes, those uniforms are just not the color to do her favors." Lili joined in, though a tightness in her voice indicated some discomfort at the direction this conversation was taking. Little miss fancy didn't like criticizing the shade of someone's skin? Surprising. Perhaps her importer father had drilled in some lessons about finding value beyond the city walls. "Of course, not that these colors are anyone's. I still can't believe the restrictions they put on us here. Such boring dark uniforms, and they expect us to learn to be elegant members of society!"

The shorter satellite, Jiayi, picked up on this new conversational cue, casting a deliberate look across the room to emphasize that they were completely ignoring Mizumi.

"But Lili, you still manage to look great. I mean some people have no ability whatsoever, even factoring in their... innate limitations." Jiayi now smiled at Mizumi. "Are those actually trousers under your dress?" Sharks and humans were the only things that could smile like that. And now that the focus was back on Mizumi, Lili seemed to have lost her brief attack of conscience.

Ayika found herself surprised to feel a small twinge of pity for the torment Mizumi was in for. Even if the girl had been creeping around. The Islander's uniform had some strange accents and tailoring but nothing about her could be called unattractive. Her lean athletic build made her look a little broad-shouldered but with her smooth skin and delicate features, the slightly boyish fit of her uniform only contributed to the air of the exotic beauty. Ayika was even more surprised when Mizumi answered back in the other girls' same poisonous sweet tone, only slightly warped by her accent.

"Well, we cannot all be such keen masters of fashion. Miss Gaoli, I admire your daring most of all. Did you know that when I was last in Jingdu I saw those exact slippers you are wearing? And that there in the capital they are only worn by boys? We in the Nation are certainly behind the fashions of the Earth Kingdom, are we not?"

Lili's face grew to such a mortified red as her companions stepped back to inspect the offending imported footwear that Ayika let out an suppressed snort of amusement. When Lili whipped her head back towards her, Ayika's face was once more smooth and placid. Lili's jaw worked silently on its gum chewing as she vibrated slightly with indecision. Then she said, "Come on girls, let's get back to somewhere private so we can talk without interruption."

As the three turned to exit through the door, Mizumi followed. "Oh, can I come with you all? As you said, I could use some help on fashions. I had no idea that you could repurpose a coral pet brush as a hair comb and yet you wear it so well, Lili!"

The three girls accelerated in their retreat and the Islander chased after them. Just as she left the room Mizumi looked back at Ayika, and her lips curved up into a smile. Before Ayika could decide how to respond, Mizumi was gone and Ayika was left blinking. Why had that girl been here at all?

Ayika started as she remembered why she herself was here. Moving quickly and silently she slid over to the corner by the open window. She'd only managed to raise her ear to the gap when Ayika heard a crash from within the Professor's office. She rushed back out into the hallway as quickly as she could, but as she approached Wen's office door the gardener stormed out.

"Call your allies if you wish," Ma'er snarled at Wen. "It will make no difference. You may be a man of honor, but such men rarely fare well against those who are willing to strike. I will return."

Ayika watched him stalk off towards the stairs as she hurried into Professor Wen's office. The little man was pacing before his window, his lips moved in some silent continuation of the argument. He was clearly agitated, and he glanced several times at the package that the visitor had left on his desk before he eventually noticed Ayika hovering uncertainly in the entrance.

"Professor, is everything ok? I…" Ayika began.

"Oh, yes, everything is perfectly fine my dear," Lizhen said. "My...that man just delivered some news to me that was...well, not exactly surprising given recent developments but...I wouldn't have thought that any of the Fire Nation would dare..."

"Um, Professor?"

"Huh?" Lizhen said, startled out of his muttering revery. "Oh, yes. I'm sorry my dear, I am rather distracted at the moment. You could…in fact you could send up one of the porter boys in a moment. I'm intending to write a letter I would appreciate if they could see delivered. Get someone who would not attract the attention down in the Kuang Harbor Exclusionary District."

"Of course, sir," Ayika said, bowing. She paused before she added, "If I could do anything else for you I'd…" She trailed off.

Professor Lizhen stopped pacing and smiled through his worry. "I'm sure you would. But at the moment I am perfectly fine. Just have the boy come up shortly to collect the letter. Oh, and send another boy who will be able to do some quick shopping for me." He wrung his hands. "There's much to be done and I just hope I remember the forms to do it. And after all my championing of Western culture and spirituality, huh, I suppose this might be considered ironic. Especially considering who I learned this ritual from." He was talking to himself again and Ayika could follow none of it.

Ayika bowed again and backed towards the door. As she reluctantly slid out the exit, she spared one last worried glance at Professor Wen. He had returned to his desk, shuffling papers and pens in a search for some which would somehow be different from their identical compatriots. Something was going on; something more than just the protesters outside the building.

It sounded like Ma'er had threatened him and it somehow all tied back to Wen's political statements about the Islanders. And now the Islanders were doing something? Ayika bit her lip, worried and frustrated. There was nothing she could do. She was just a servant. Her grandma had taught her a few charms and rituals of questionable veracity but none of them even claimed to deal with spirits ranking high enough to influence politics. As Ayika gently closed the office door, it crossed her mind to really wonder if the Islanders had brought any of their own spirits with them across the sea. Did they know they were supposed to stay in the Exclusion?

...


	6. Matchsticks

...

Ayika was always the school employee who got sent out on troublesome errands and today was no different, shouting mob outside or not. In fact, the continued presence of Professor Wen's detractors meant Mrs Jiangsu had a particularly wicked smirk when she ordered Ayika on this latest mission _._

There were still quite a number of protesters milling around even this late in the afternoon. They clearly wanted to show that they were having some secret conversations in the hope that others might try to overhear so they could pointedly stop talking until they were alone again. Ayika drew herself up as she passed, as far up as she could be drawn, and watched the milling figures out of the corner of her eye. After Ma'er's visit everything took on a more sinister aspect.

Most of these protesters were cut of the same dingy cloth that formed the bulk of any disturbance in the city; hard working 'pillars of the community' who mysteriously had nothing better to do all day. Those were supplemented by angry-eyed youths who'd regretfully discovered that being able to make little Tsuran hit himself in the face every morning for four years did not coalesce into later job opportunities. There were also a few of the rich university boys who had probably organized this bit of nationalist uproar, but behind them were men who looked well-off enough to have better places to be. And there were quite a few women in this angry mix, women who to judge by their expressions were twice as dangerous as any of the other suspects.

It was all too organized. Angry crowds were practically the primary employer of the Impenetrable Citizenry, but here there was an atmosphere of patience, of waiting for orders. It made Ayika's skin crawl. She wondered what the Ma'er's connection to this was.

She made her way across the local square, trying to settle the shivers running up her spine. The young nationalists had been rounding up a small crowd of discontents once a week since Professor Lizhen joined the school, but Ayika would have placed money on them losing interest a while ago. Had the Ambassador's funeral stirred them up this much? Then her thoughts turned to the Islander girl with copper in her hair and Ayika began to think that there could be another explanation, when a sound slid in her hears and grabbed her brain.

"A quick light! Magic in your pocket! Improve your daily efficiency by adding a bit of modern thinking to your repetitive domestic duties and exploit the inherent alchemical power potentials in common dirts! Also works for pipes!"

Ayika turned with a groan, knowing exactly who must have set up shop here. It was not that Xinfei Bao was a bad businessman, in fact frequently the "sure-fire hit products" he identified soon become rather popular. The problem lay in the execution. The boy managed to combine in one gangly frame both unsettling optimism and an off-putting aura of desperation. If a man was dying in the desert Xinfei would show up with a jug of water priced at exactly what his target had in his pockets, but the man would end up crawling away to investigate his other options.

"Xinfei! What are you doing here!?" Ayika hissed furiously as she sprang around the street corner.

The young man jerked in surprise, losing his grip on the small red box he'd been waving over his head, and failed to make the subsequent flailings result in its recapture. The wax-paper box popped open against the flagstones and sent a stream of little sticks rolling across the street. When he turned to see her, Xinfei erupted into a grin. He ran a hand through his rumpled black hair.

"Ayika! Ah...uh, hey! I was hoping I'd see you."

Smiling wearily, Ayika bent down to help him gather up his merchandise, taking care to not let her uniform skirt trail in the dirt. Xinfei was clearly related to his elder brother Xiaobao who despite his best efforts left a trail of swooning girls behind him, but adolescence had so far not been kind to Xinfei. At seventeen, in the last year he'd added almost a head of height but apparently not a gram of weight. The stretched look was accompanied with the youthful clumsiness of someone who continually found his fingers and toes a few centimeters away from where he left them. Ayika smiled as she scraped up a handful of the smelly paint-dipped sticks. It was kind of nice to have a friend who never seemed to see anything she did as a mistake, even if he did currently smell faintly like rotten eggs.

"Um, actually..." said Xinfei, wincing as he watched her grabbing the little sticks. "I kind of wouldn't try to let them scrape the stones like that. Or each other, really." Ayika now noticed white cloth strips wound tightly around his palm and several of his fingers. Adding that to his fixed grin watching the little capped sticks in her hand like they might bite and the number of black scorch marks one the stones around her, Ayika very quickly tossed the demon twigs to her friend.

"What are you doing with these!" she hissed.. "Why are you messing around with foreign magic? Keeping fire sorcery in a...paper box!"

Xinfei waved an unconcerned though quite bandaged hand. "Nah, they aren't magic and they aren't dangerous. Well not really, those guys in the Islander capital really know what they're doing. It's just special types of dirt mixed together and then painted on a bit of wood. Although..." He glanced up at the sky. "...it might be a good idea to get these in their box and out of direct sunlight."

Ayika groaned and returned to her original question. "Xinfei, what are you doing _here_?"

He shrugged. "Well, I was thinking about those who'd be the most fed up with the flint and steel. Then I remembered seeing those fancy style tea houses up here where they light that little bit of oil under each pot to keep them warm on the table, and there's lots of smoke bars and big houses with a ton of lamps to light every night. And of course I'd get to see you too when you got off work!"

It was hard to get frustrated with Xinfei no matter what he did. His mind would just race off down the street without checking to see if there was a pit in it first. And besides, that grin was so hopeful.

So instead Ayika said, "For the...that's not what I meant. What are you doing selling Islander products right across from a bunch of people protesting foreigners? Did you even notice them?"

Xinfei raised his eyebrow, managing to look slightly hurt. "Of course I noticed them, and I've been keeping an eye on that. I even sold a pack to one place 'round here just because the cook was sick of that lot and wanted to spite them. Not everyone thinks Fire Nation is a dirty word. Some even notice it's two words. And besides, if the mob wants to light torches tonight I can probably sell some boxes once it gets dark enough that they can't read the labels."

Ayika grabbed Xinfei by the collar and pulled him in close to her.

"Don't help people burn down my school."

She poked him firmly in the forehead and let go.

Leaning back against the wall, Ayika looked over at the peaked eaves of the school rising behind the buildings that lined this square. The crowd in that street was still growing. "I don't get it. Are they angry about the professor or about the girl? She was creeping around but she just got here today. And why does it all look, well, organized? Those 'Student Movement' goofs from the university couldn't organize a trip to the bathroom."

Tightening the cords around his bundle of little paper boxes, Xinfei spoke up. "It's got to be the funeral of the ambassador, right? People don't like the idea of a foreign god being set up in the city. And organized? Yeah, other people 'round here have noticed. A lot of people are saying that someone is spending money, you know, food and drink and stuff to make sure the crowd doesn't drift off."

He caught Ayika's surprised look. "Like I said, keeping an eye. Tsao said it's the Society behind it, but of course it's probably just Public Safety agents wanting an excuse to round up a whole lot of people at once. Yeah, sponsor a riot and then arrest everyone in it, that's like them."

Ayika felt a faint trill of fear somewhere deep inside her, but she tried to ignore it. "Spare your paranoia for a bit, what society? I thought it was just those university kids running this."

Xinfei waved his hand vaguely. "You know, the Mask Society or the Society of Masks or whatever."

"What?"

"Yeah, some guy who supposedly got secret lessons from some guru in the mountains or whatever and now can thump benders around like it's nothing, you know? Sure. There's always someone supposedly out there who has the secret to normal people beating benders. Didn't we used to hear about, who was it? The Yellow Sage or whatever, over in the tanner quarter?"

"Didn't they arrest a lot of those guys?" Ayika mumbled.

"Yeah, exactly. Didn't hear about any secret tricks helping against benders who can smash a brick wall with a flick of their wrist."

Ayika shook her head, shaking free of her circular thoughts. "Look, I've still got to get to the shops. You need to go try and sell your stuff somewhere else. I don't want those guys deciding that some harbor boy needs a pounding for hawking Islander merch."

She took off, angling towards a small alley shortcut. Behind her, Xinfei hoisted his awkward merchandise bundle to his shoulders as he followed.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry 'bout me." But he saw her concerned look and gave a toothy smile. "Come on, those guys have already chosen what to get angry about today. And if they were going to pick fights over selling stuff from the Exclusion then half the ritzy shops here would be in line. Everything from the East's in fashion up here, and right now I'm very fashionable!"

"Oh are you, really? Then I think we have a problem," said a deep and threatening voice.

Ayika groaned, recognizing that kind of tone from excessive experience. It was the sound of men frustrated with society making them feel weak and powerless, but satisfied that at least could make those around them feel quite a bit weaker. Thug voices. Any protest had some.

Cursing her friend's almost supernaturally bad luck, Ayika looked to see two large figures filling the narrow alley and doing their level best to get this looming thing down right. Xinfei's face smoothly fell from optimism to resigned anxiety. Ayika quickly threw a smile on her face, noting the mass of bundled alcohol jugs the two men had sitting beside them, some already open. A sniff confirmed that these two had gotten pretty far into at least one of the bottles.

Ayika began to motion to Xinfei behind her, surreptitiously gesturing back the way they'd come. She was thinking fast: don't reply to anything they say, just slowly walk away and make them remember that their bottle is more interesting than bothering you.

One of them beckoned with a nasty smile. "Hey, slow down, boy! We might just want to purchase some of your product! Then you might be able to afford that cut-rate mud-girl you've got there. Ha!"

The bigger of the two men was moving, angling to block Ayika in the alley. She made an indecipherable shrug and kept a pleasantly neutral expression on her face. She'd grown up a girl on the docks and knew how to deal with surly drunks holding more muscles than sense. The key was not to push them too far.

"Hey! Don't you dare talk about her like that! I'll..." Xinfei trailed off, belatedly realizing his mistake.

Ayika silently groaned, cursing the collective male delusion that women couldn't tell the difference between heroics and stupidity. The thugs now grinned like sharks with blood in the water. By the unwritten rules of street life, the two kids were now fair game as they had shown, to wit, 'bloody stupidity'.

The men loomed, having now perfected that technique, and closed the distance. The nearest spread his hands across the alley and said, "Hey, now. We're just looking for a little...product demonstration." He grinned at Ayika and put his hand on her shoulder. "And after we might even want to see what the little race traitor has in his boxes! Hah!"

Ayika breathed out, trying to calm her racing heart. Grandma Aka had taught her that idiots were tricky to manage, but also much more vulnerable to certain flavors of persuasion. If the fools think you're all mystical savages, then you might as well play into it, she'd said. Use that head of yours, and make your skin a weapon.

The thug frowned when Ayika pushed his arm away, but then she waved her hand in front of her in a complex series of signs and his eyes widened from confusion to a touch of fear.

"I wouldn't do that. You're looking at the granddaughter of Aka the Witch."

"Who?"

Ok, Ayika thought to herself. Maybe that line worked better down in the harbor than up here in the rings. But the principle was still sound.

She focused on playing up an accent. "The spirits of the city, they hear my call. _Ikallag_. "

The man was getting worried now. "Hey, what's she saying? Stop that."

Ayika continued with her chant in the foreign language, " _Tuutangayag, arwer, makarua_." Of course, those words were mostly just the names of food dishes. Ayika barely spoke the language of her parents' tribe, but to most people any foreign words said in a spooky voice sounded like witchcraft. As always, most of magic was about the intent. The nearest thug was starting to look at the hand that had touched her shoulder with a good bit of dread.

Unfortunately the other man was less educated in the stereotypes of her people. "Shut the hell up, Tribal. That's all bull and you know it."

His friend was not as convinced. "No, seriously. I heard that during the war them out north got up to all sorts of creepy things. That's how those primitives survived. Dao said their witches can stick the Nine-Step-Shadow on you or get the Moon Spirit to steal your soul. Their kind can't read but they've got that big magic."

However, he wasn't successful in dissuading the other who just pushed past him. Now that Ayika thought of it, Grandma Aka might have been joking about some of those principles of magic. In the corner of her eyes, Ayika could sense Xinfei tensing to do something that would get his skull pounded against the bricks. It was time to transition from the metaphysical to more mundane solutions.

Breathing quickly, Ayika took a half step towards the man who thought he was holding her in place. The thing about being short is is that it made some sensitive parts of tall men particularly accessible. Ayika made a quick sharp motion between his legs and watched his lecherous smile turn into a rictus. Her next motion implanted another sharp elbow in a kidney, and a heavy leather heel to the back of his knee. Grandma Aka had taught her about a lot more than spirits.

Fortunately, Xinfei had the sense to be running the instant he saw her elbow draw back. It was always the same with these alley fights, once you escaped back onto the public streets, different rules applied and you were safe. Usually. Of course, escape depended on there not being a third man standing quite firmly in the exit.

This new obstacle was cut of a different cloth from the two thugs. He wasn't dressed like a back-street brawler, but instead had on the kind of clothes that someone might actually care about if they got dirty and his latched shoulder bag was embroidered. He was plain faced, with a mole over one eye, and he held himself rigidly, but to Ayika there was a growling tension beneath his surface.

Some people felt like that. They were the ones who would sit quietly in the corner of the drinking house taking mockery or abuse all night, right up until they slashed two men's throats with a carving knife and had to be hauled off, still snapping like a chained beast. And yet for reasons that perpetually eluded Ayika, people would always trust them and say things like, "Oh, that can't be the whole story. He was so quiet. He could never cause a bit of trouble like that." It was as if they couldn't smell the rot behind their eyes.

This man's eyes had bags under them like he hadn't gotten enough sleep last night but that seemed to have made him angry rather than weary. Behind her, Ayika heard the thugs. One unwisely called out, "All right, sir! Ya got em!"

The man with the mole's gaze never flickered, but the snarling presences was now projected at the unfortunate thug and their cargo of jugs. "And what exactly have I got? Are you referring to the...diminished... supplies I sent you for hours ago, or to the unwanted attention these things in front of me might have brought?"

The thug's hobbled friend, judging that he could now probably talk without squeaking, decided to speak up. "That little street rat there's been selling foreign stuff all morning. Going on about..." Here he spat, partially from disgust but mostly to disguise the shooting pains still dominating his lower abdomen. "...Eastern quality. And the tribal girl tried to spook us with some weird witchcraft. We were going to teach them a little lesson about patriotism and honoring our city's spirits."

Those hard eyes still had not moved. "Get out."

Not needing to be told twice, the thugs made a hasty exit, sliding past their leader like he was on fire. Ayika made a motion to follow them, but an arm like steel blocked her way.

Keeping her face servilely lowered, she turned back towards the man and said, "Thank you for being so gracious, sir. I was just saying something in my tribe's language and those men must have gotten spooked. My foolish friend was just leaving now and has mentioned that he's never going to be tricked into selling a foreign product again. See, he couldn't read the labels. We don't want to trouble you anymore."

She thought to herself, alright, we're sufficiently terrorized, now let us go.

The arm blocking her way didn't budge. "My associates were idiots. But not because they decided to teach a lesson about capitulation to foreigners. Because they were failing at it."

The man stepped closer, using his size and height to intrude on Ayika's space. He glared at her with such disgusted focus that he didn't seem to notice Xinfei slipping around behind him.

So much for demure. Back to the alley wall, Ayika straightened up to look the man in the eye as well she could. Her voice changed. "Look guy, my friend's heading out already. You don't want to make some commotion and get the guards' attention before your crowd outside the school gets fully organized. And hey, a beaten harbor girl might not count for much, but an employee of the school that's already lodged complaints? Just let us go and everything's still fine."

Her heart was pounding in her ears and she could feel her hands shaking as she pointed to the front of her uniform. She just hoped he could see the school emblem and not the tremors. Then she smelled smoke. Odd.

The man seemed to draw inward and upward. One hand twitched towards the bag that hung at his side. He began to smile but that expression would look more appropriate with snarling fangs.

"Oh, I think you might overestimate just how much commotion there would be. And everyone does need to be informed how...dangerous, foreign influence can be. I think you'll see that..." Then he noticed the smoke as well. The back of your robe being on fire can be quite attention grabbing.

The man spun around in a panic, accidentally fanning the flames that raced up from multiple ignition points across the back of his clothes. Ayika's eyes went wide as she realized Xinfei was holding a handful of lit matches. The man made to grab at Xinfei but then had to throw up an arm to block the shower of fire tossed his way. The last sight Ayika had as Xinfei tugged her out of the alley was the man frantically rubbing his back against a wall while holding his satchel as far out in front of him as possible.

They'd gone four blocks before they stopped running, or in Xinfei's case switching between rapid dashing and smooth speed-walking every few meters as the match box bundle on his back rattled alarmingly. The first to catch her breath, Ayika looked at her friend in disbelief.

"You set him on fire."

Still panting, Xinfei shrugged. "Well... just...his tabard...really." His speech was punctuated with gasps as he struggled for breath.

"You set him on fire," she repeated flatly.

He waved a red paper box. "I told you I'd find a market for these."

That smile was too much, and laughing just hurt her sides, but they both couldn't stop for a full minute. Finally managing to resist laughing and laughing about laughing, Ayika regained composure.

"Damn it man, that guy could be trouble but...nice one. You really should make yourself scarce though. Most of those anti-foreign types are idiots but that guy meant business. There's too many of that sort around today."

Xinfei looked around at the clean and cobbled streets with a kind of hunger. He was weighing his very light purse against an intact skin and having difficulty deciding the balance. "This district actually is the best sales territory, and I haven't really sold enough yet. I was kind of hoping to get enough for a proper meal to bring home."

"Well, if you'd just gone to work with your brother then you'd've been fine. My mom made you guys lunches."

"Really?" he said with a new grin. It seemed he'd skipped a meal today.

"Yeah, I expect Xiaobao's eaten yours already." Xinfei's face fell. Ayika punched at his arm. "I didn't know where you were, idiot. I wasn't going to go tracking across the city looking to bring you lunch."

She then watched his skinny face mournfully regarding his still rather empty coin purse. She groaned inwardly, it was impossible to watch those cracks in his perpetual act of self assurance. Ayika shrugged in defeat, knowing she was lost. "Look, just save your coins. Come by the back kitchen entrance of the school after it gets dark. The place always has extra food, and I haven't cashed in on my leftovers rights for a while. I'm sure I can stuff you full of something."

"Hey, you don't need to-"

"Come on Xinfei, my mom would have my hide if I let you starve to death. And for you that looks to be a couple hours away." She laughed, hitting him lightly on the arm. Xinfei looked incredibly embarrassed but he did not seem ready to bring up any new objections.

Ayika straightened up and cracked her neck. "All right, I still need to run and grab the stuff for Jiangsu. You just be careful, alright? The city air's too tense for my taste."

"Yeah. You watch out too. I mean those protesters are right outside your work. You'll have to go by them on your way in and out. You could..., I mean, just take care."

She was already turning with an absent nod, not noticing the look of honest concern and something more on Xinfei's face. Ayika's brow furrowed and her lips pursed to the side in thought. How far were these protesters willing to go, just because Lizhen wanted people to be kind? And what was that Mizumi girl's part in this? Ayika walked off, waving vaguely at Xinfei as she left her friend staring at her retreating back. He shifted his awkward bundle of matchboxes and made his own way off down the dusty street.

Xinfei knew that Ayika was capable of handling herself. But the tensions that were boiling in the city now were more than anyone could handle. He gripped onto the loops of twine that served him as shoulder straps for his makeshift pack. There was another reason he'd risked crossing all of the Lower Ring and two walls. He would do what he could to help her. Besides, he was really looking forward to those leftovers now.

...


	7. Shadow

...

The last sliver of the sun slowly dipped into the horizon's smog bath and Ayika was uneasy. The air around the school seemed tight; anticipatory. That evening two fights had broken out between staff girls to be stopped only when a furious Mrs Jiangsu shoved them off to jobs on opposite sides of the building. The shafts of dying light that traced across the interior walls set them ablaze in orange as Ayika made her rounds securing the doors and windows for the night.

Outside the school compound, the angry crowd of nationalist protesters was being dispersed by city guards. Those supposed officers of the peace were not necessarily concerned about any potential victims but they did not want to be called back again after dark as they would assuredly be if the throng was allowed to remain. The menacing man Ayika and Xinfei had encountered hadn't reappeared. Perhaps being set slightly on fire had dulled his spirit. His protesting comrades went on their way with only a minimum number of invectives hurled at traitorous collaborators hiding in the school.

Down in the kitchen, the remaining school cooks were bustling with cleaning and preparing for the next day's meals. As busy as they were, they could only spare a few nervous looks at the dark shadows of the room seasoned in tonight's strange energy. Clouds were gathering in the crimson sky, and darkness marshaled on a soft breeze.

The cups on Ayika's serving tray clinked softly as she slowly opened the door to Wen's office. In there, every surface was now covered with books and paper except for the table in the center of the room where a paper-wrapped package roughly the size of a cooking dish was ringed with candles. It was the same bundle Ma'er's assistant had been carrying. A small iron disk with engravings sat next to it, perhaps one of the many foreign artifacts from the professor's display shelves. At his desk, Lizhen muttered to himself as his brush danced across a sheet of paper; deletions and corrections accompanied with quiet mutters.

Ayika cleared her throat, trying to ignore the prickling on the back of her neck. "Um, I thought that you might want something-"

"Why are you interrupting me?!" Lizhen snapped with a surprising ferocity that made Ayika jump. "The sunset is almost over so if he hasn't arrived then just leave me to…!" He leaned back, wiping the sweat from his shiny face. "Ayika, I am sorry. Tension, coupled with the influence of the...Something to eat would probably be a good idea, yes. Thank you."

"Of course," Ayika replied evenly, her attention now focused on the problem of retrieving a cup that had hopped off her tray when she jerked back in surprise. She'd miraculously caught it her foot and now swayed slightly as she reached down to retrieve it. Carefully executing her improvised acrobatic maneuver, she continued, "Jiangsu, er, I mean Mrs Jiangsu has got a dinner ready for you when you want it. I told her that you were working on something important up here and she got a plate made up."

Cup retrieved, Ayika moved across the room and set her tray down on a little service table near the professor's desk where she began to pour the tea. "Who's supposed to arrive?"

Lizhen shook his head distractedly. "Don't worry about that. Just let me know of any visitors."

She couldn't ignore the poor man's plight. "Um, Professor Wen, if you don't mind, are you ok? If that gardener from before was threatening you or..." She trailed off before starting again. "I can go to the headmaster for you if it's an issue. Not even mention your name. Some story about him grabbing at students and he'll never be let in here again. You're such an important man for the reformers and against the Ministers' men that, well, I thought I could help."

Lizhen nodded courteously to her. "Thank you very much for the offer Ayika, but I will have to decline your offer of assistance." There was a smile on his lips. "After all I will have to learn to live without your support one day when you leave us for some greatness. I have had a...troubling day. And one that is not over yet." He turned to look out the window at the gathering dark.

Ayika recognized foreboding comments when she came across them and anxiously grabbed hold of the conversation. "Well, no matter how dark it gets you should be well lit in here. You don't half have a bunch of candles about."

They were in fact covering most of the surfaces in the room, though they were unlit except for the few by the desk and the curious ring around the table.

Lizhen gave a start, now looking at the room from an outsider's perspective. "Ha, I suppose I do," he laughed. "I must have sent the porters to clear out the storeroom!"

"And I see you've got the fireplace emptied too. Do you want me to light those candles for you now, sir? You'll strain your eyes if you keep writing in the dim."

He shook his head and muttered, half to himself. "No, that will not be necessary. I will light them myself when the time is right. The timing is as important as the flame. By myself, even though...But no, she wouldn't have come even if I asked." Sighing, he settled back in his chair. "Yes, now is a perfect time for a bit of repast. Give Mrs Jiangsu my consideration and bring up what you can get for me. I can tend to my own tea."

"Right away." Ayika bowed as she backed away and skirted around the center table with its package and ring of candles. There was a draft from somewhere in the room that made the little flames waver and dance.

"Ayika?"

She was halfway out the doorway when she heard his voice.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

She didn't say anything but she smiled and left the man staring at his writings in the fading light.

...

Night unfolded black wings over the city. It was a night that made every shadow on the street seem to rise up into the shape a watching figure. Pools of lamplight merely concentrated the darkness into strange illusions and soft sounds echoed as cooling planks creaked in nocturnal communication.

When Ayika was a child, she'd been afraid of the dark. When she grew restless and frightful her grandmother had sat her on the floor before Aka's old cushion-covered chair to listen to stories of the spirits. Grandma Aka had told the old country stories of the phantasmal Breath-Stealers in the tall forest and of the Long-Fingers who pretended to be ice floes drifting in the water so they could sneak close to the village during the night.

She even told new stories that she learned here in the city or, as she called it, gossiped about some neighbor spirits. That is how Ayika learned about the Nine-Step-Shadow who signaled impending death, each time you saw him one sliding one pace closer until the end. There were stories of Blind Dog Lord who held court over all the ghasts of street and stone, who could smell your thoughts and could suck up your ghost with one breath, and Gold Toad who loved the Moon.

She even heard of the Scissors-Man, a creation so terrifying that Grandma Aka had never even gotten the chance to even fully explain a single tale about him. Little Ayika had just screamed and retreated to her blankets in the corner. That spirit remained in Ayika's mind as a vague shadow; a cloaked figure either wielding scissors or controlling scissors or even made of scissors himself, clicking away with each step down the brick paved streets.

Grandma Aka had defended these sessions which left the little girl clutching her covers white-knuckled as a preventative process. She'd waved away Ayika's mother's concerns while she said, "Better sick with fright now than dead of it later."

With all that considered, when Ayika burst out of the dark hallway into the school's crowded kitchen at a near run, she allowed herself to bask in a bit of relief before feeling ridiculous. She could have ended up a lot worse than occasionally nervous around shadows. Here in this well-lit room the cooks were still at work cleaning the large metal pots that fed the students. As Ayika entered there was a loud " _Fwwsh_!" from one of the ovens and an accompanying blast of heat.

"That is it!"

A young cook threw down her fire poker with an ear-rending clang. The girl's face was streaked with soot and one eyebrow appeared to be smoldering. "The fires've gone crazy!" she said pointing wildly around the room. "And the lamps are acting weird, and then there was that knocking outside just now! It's been going on all evening. One of those protesters must have cursed us! We need someone to bless the kitchen god before we all burn to death! If we don't, the spirits…"

Her yell trailed away as she stared in Ayika's direction with an unusual degree of respect and fear.

Ayika felt a mass looming behind her in the doorway and so spun to the side as quickly as possible, feeling Mrs Jiangsu's hand land on the space Ayika's shoulder had just vacated. The matron of the female staff gave Ayika a skeptical glare which she parried with an all-purpose respectful bowing of the head. And so like a warship passing down the river, Jiangsu moved on to her intended target, the unfortunate cook.

"Miss Ming," Jiangsu began. This growling utterance invoked another flurry of head bobbing from the staff. "If I hear you making excuses for your own clumsiness again I will have you scrub that fireplace yourself. And I am still deciding whether it will be lit or not when you do."

She moved over to the tiny shrine carved into the wall between the main fire and the preparation tables. Peering down theatrically she continued, "The god looks fine. He doesn't even look like he's telling me some one-eyebrowed idiot forgot to adjust the flue in the chimney when the wind picked up. No, he certainly doesn't look like he's telling me someone better be doing that right now. Right. Now." She paused, waiting for comprehension. "Oh for...Get on it!"

As Ming scrambled, Jiangsu turned her steely gaze on Ayika. "And you. What are you doing standing around down here?"

"I've got...," Ayika said. "Er, Professor Lizhen is asking for his supper."

The older woman's face softened. "That man never does know what time it is. He'll have been busy with those packages coming in all evening. Go ahead, I've got his stuff put aside over on the warming counter."

"Right." Ayika bobbed in acknowledgment and hurried over, gathering up the covered food tray.

As soon as she returned into the empty halls the hairs on the back of her neck rose again. The dark varnished wood gleamed dimly under the far-spaced oil lamps like the eyes of spirits. Ayika chided herself for being ridiculous before she abruptly stopped. What had Ming said about hearing knocking from outside? Those protesters had been lurking around the school compound until very recently. Were they trying to accomplish something more devious tonight?

A glance out a nearby window yielded nothing but darker shadows. The school's outer wall shielded light from the street so the grounds were pitch black. In the hallway, Ayika took a few more careful steps on creaking floorboards. In the quiet Ayika felt her ears ringing with the strain of listening for what was not there. Finally, she gave herself a mental slap and continued on down the hall at a normal pace.

Then there was a faint rattling sound. She turned towards the garden door. It was latched shut and nothing could be seen outside it. There was only silence. Ayika took a statue-slow step backwards, pressing her back against the window shutter on the opposite side. In an instant, she'd regressed a decade into a child fearing the coming of the Scissors-Man.

There was loud rapping against the shutter right behind her. It threw her heart into her mouth and the food tray jumping in her hand.

"Ayika, psst! It's Xinfei!"

Ayika thankfully managed to swallow her shriek and fling open the window with the fires of hell burning in her eyes. Xinfei Bao stood outside looking sheepish.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Ayika demanded in a furious whisper.

The tall, skinny boy outside ran a hand through his spiky mess of hair as he shifted the bundle of merchandise on his back. "Hey, you told me to come by at sunset. You said you were going to get some extra stuff for me and Maolin." Ayika continued to glare so he added, "Well, you did."

"The sun set an hour ago! What are you doing creeping around in the dark scaring people...other people!"

Xinfei got a bit defensive. "I was out selling as long as people were on the street and it took me a while to get back here since I got chased out, remember? When I came up the street the side gate was open so I went to find you. Look, are you off yet or what?"

"I…" She looked back in the direction of the kitchen. "Ok, I've got your food set aside back there. Since you're already in, I can unlatch that courtyard door on the other side and you come around and wait for me. I have to take this tray up to Professor Wen, but then I'll change out of this uniform so we can head out."

Xinfei shrugged. "That's fine. You do your thing. You guys sure have a lot of late workers here, I could see a couple of them moving around up there in the windows."

Ayika frowned, "The professor's the only one upstairs. What are you talking about?"

Xinfei shrugged, "I don't know, I guess both those windows were to his office then. Hey, go take your tray and I'll come around the building."

Ayika threw open the latch on the courtyard door and headed towards the main stairs. The sense of anxiety was building so as Ayika summited, to quiet her paranoia, she turned down the first side corridor and opened the door. She breathed deeply to calm her foolish fear as she stepped into a classroom totally unoccupied in the flickering lamplight.

Flickering? She turned to look at the oil lamp hanging in the corner. The normally steady flame was surging and sputtering. Ayika lifted her hand up near the intake. There was no breath of motion in the air and yet the little fire was twisting and growing as if trying to leap off the wick. Had Ming actually been right about the kitchen oven?

There was a brief sound of flowing air in the hall behind her and Ayika stuck her head back out to see if any of the other lamps were acting oddly. They all were. Down the length of the hallway the shadows danced as the light rebelled. At the other end of the corridor Ayika could hear sounds from the Professor's office, like the man was reading aloud to himself in a droning monotone.

Then he suddenly fell silent. Unnamed senses tensed as Ayika began to hurry forward, gripping the tray with both hands. A gleam of steady light spilled out of Wen's unlatched door into the abrupt quiet and Ayika slowed her silent dash just outside, already preparing for the embarrassment of appearing all out of breath for no reason. She pushed the door open.

Every lamp-flame winked out and the entire building plummeted into black.

Blurry spots of color flashed in her eyes at the sudden dark. Ayika began to call out a question, but something shot out of the shadow to slam into her chest with enough force to knock her back into the wall. The tray crashed to the floor as she was thrown clear. Pain and shock replaced breathing for a second. From somewhere in the office there was a sound of smashing glass and the inky blindness suddenly coalesced into visible forms. A black shadow with a white grinning face and jutting fangs stood before her.

The black man-shape's arm rose up, fist clenched to send another blow of impossible force down upon her, this time aimed at Ayika's head. She struggled to twist away from the attack even as she tried to scream for help. Nothing made sense and she could barely breath. Her chest and back seared with pain.

She was about to die. That rigid mask-like face with snarling tusks looked down and she was helpless before its wrath. Then the white face suddenly jerked back. It looked at its fist as if in some internal struggle. For a second the figure's dim outline seemed to blur and double like each limb was two arms disguised as one.

Then her assailant glanced back at the far corner of the office before rushing past her out the door in an unnatural burst of speed, carrying an object under its arm. The room was abruptly empty save for a gust left by its lightning departure. Ayika lay crumpled against the wall as she panted for breath in the light of the spreading fire.

Fire.

Ayika's blurry vision turned as flames licked across the spreading pool of oil from a smashed lamp. The sound of shattering glass. Whatever had to extinguished all light in the building had ended and now the problem was instead a rapidly increasing supply of fire. Ayika clutched at her chest, baring her teeth against the throbbing pain of the blow. She didn't know when she had last breathed.

" _Hhea_!" She yelled indistinctly, a thousand words crashing together in her mouth. The room seemed wavering, unreal, as if the canvas of reality had been ripped away and all the paints were mixing together. The fire was growing. Then her jumbled brain noticed the unnatural silence in the room and the still shape lying on the floor, carelessly tossed in the way of discarded things. A single limp hand protruded from the sleeve of a robe spotted with blots of ink. Ayika screamed.

"Professor!"

...


	8. Guards

...

In this dark hour before moonrise it took Xinfei longer than he had expected to find his way around the school. It should have been safe to assume that a fancy place like this would be well lit but apparently he had no such luck. By the time he finished his blind trek around the main building he was covered in scratches from a bush and had stubbed his toes at least twice. Xinfei grumbled a quietly cursed litany against his need to follow any direction Ayika gave him. It was, by this point in his life, a familiar speech. Then, mercifully, he stumbled out into an open space at the heart of the walled compound.

This inner courtyard was only lit by the stars above and the diffuse glow drifting up from the streets outside the school. That was strange. None of the school's windows showed any lamps lit inside, despite the fact that Xinfei had just seen the place shining a minute ago. He walked up onto a decorative pavilion and felt his way towards the garden door Ayika had designated as their meeting place. His hand met space; the door was ajar. Inside there was only darkness.

Xinfei was very conscious of the fact that he was not strictly allowed to be here but he chanced a whisper anyway. "Ayika? You back?"

He'd seen Ayika here a few minutes ago but now it was dark and silent. Xinfei stood awkwardly in the doorway. He wondered why the school staff would have snuffed out the lamps all at once.

Then a scream tore through the building from somewhere up above. Xinfei hunched down in a reflexive crouch that his brother would have told him only served make him easier to knock down. He was blind here, without even the light of the stars from outside. Then a flash of brilliance struck and he shuffled through his pockets for one of the little wax-paper boxes. With a grin, he struck the match against a bit of stone flagging.

The little light bloomed on the stick, and then continued blooming distressingly. Xinfei's fingers were almost scorched by a sudden fist-sized ball of fire that hungrily ate down the small twig of wood at an almost impossible speed. Xinfei froze, staring at the roaring match in open mouthed astonishment and confusion, so it came as a further surprise when something large shot out of the black hallway and crashed into him.

A person all in black dashed around the corner of the hall and hit Xinfei like a stampeding horse. Together they went skidding across the floor, coming to a rest with a decisive " _Krnk_ " on each side of the open doorway. Blurrily, Xinfei lifted his aching head to see a black human figure flip itself upright and turn towards him, white tusks gleaming and wide empty eyes staring out of the twisted white face. It was a mask. A sudden lunge made Xinfei jerk his arms up in front of his face, only to find himself suddenly alone in the entry-hall now lit by flickering orange light.

Xinfei scrambled forward into the doorway in time to see the man-shadow reach the garden wall in three incredible strides and silently leap high into the sky like a bird taking flight. Xinfei didn't see any bender flashiness to vault someone up like that. Not a stone had moved or a breath of air but still the man shot up into the night and disappeared. Who was that? Then Xinfei was alone with the growing light behind him. Wait, what light?

He turned with panic to see the hallway's rug being consumed in hungry flames racing out from his match, smoke rising up to blacken the ceiling. The fire was at least behaving normally now, or as normal as a fire currently destroying a rug could behave. But the question of what had happened with that weird match could be put on hold for now because Xinfei had accidentally committed arson.

Panicking, Xinfei grabbed his pack and raised it to beat out the flames, only stop just short and reflect on the wisdom of adding ten full packages of incendiary merchandise to the problem. From somewhere on the second floor, he could hear a woman screaming for help as he frantically looked for something to use against the now alarmingly large fire. Pleading with the flame, Xinfei gingerly picked up an unburnt edge of the rug to smother the object within itself. It was a very clever idea that unfortunately only served to make the fire brighter and more compact, ensuring that no scrap of this rug would escape.

So it was that a crowd of rushing school servants skidded into the room to see Xinfei trying to tug this conflagration towards the open door by holding a single uncomfortably toasty corner. The fire continued to enjoy a merry and unhindered existence.

Blackened with smoke and hunched in his labor, Xinfei could only blankly meet the eyes of the assembled servant girls. Grinning this near the fire toasted his gums, so he grimaced instead. "Don't mind me, I've got this under control, someone upstairs needs help!" This provoked no movement.

At that point an immense female figure puffed into the room, trailed by several men in scruffy porters' uniforms. Sparing a bare glance at Xinfei navigating his fiery burden out onto the porch pavilion, she continued on, uttering a single command in his direction. "Two of you grab that one and hold him down. We'll go deal with what's upstairs."

The two porters kindly waited until Xinfei finally managed to get the rug safely out onto to the stone courtyard floor before smashing him down face-first into the same. Xinfei twisted until his nose was no longer crushed against the flagstones and settled down into the familiar 'you've been knicked' wait with someone sitting on his back. As he glimpsed more flickering firelight up in a second floor window he could only muster a feeble prayer for whatever Ayika had gotten herself into, and after a thought, for himself too.

...

Ayika sat on a low stool in the corner of Wen's office. Her hands repeatedly wrapped around the singed edges of her dress, fingers gripping and releasing in their own unconscious cycle. Most of the staff girls were still clustered in the hallway outside the door, taking turns to steal glances into the smoke-blackened room. Every time Mrs Jiangsu's pacing orbit took her near the entrance she swatted the girls back but they returned as soon as she moved away. Mrs Jiangsu moved continuously, having never stopped from the moment she oversaw smothering the remaining fires, and dispatched the porter boys to get help about the crumpled shape on the floor. To do something about him, about…

Ayika's fingernails bit into her leg. Why couldn't she have…? Why didn't she…? Her eyes were locked on a patch of air somewhere above the floorboards, just to the side of where the blanket lay covering the still shape of… Her thoughts were jumbled and skipped around, avoiding the pain like a hand jerking back from a hot stove.

When Jiangsu and the others first reached the office, after completing the job Ayika had begun of extinguishing the flaming piles of paper and books with heavy soaked hangings and rugs, they had beaten out the bits of her uniform that persisted in burning and then tried to force her out of the room. One of the porter boys who'd spearheaded that effort was still lying down in the next room groaning at what she'd inflicted across certain vulnerable areas of his anatomy. It was Jiangsu who'd caught hold of Ayika's flailing arms and held her firmly as she thrashed in silent rabid growls. It was only when the tears finally broke through that the aging matron gently shoved Ayika's now inexplicably weak frame over to a small stool in the back corner of the office.

They were waiting for the guards. Someone had sent for the headmaster and for someone else that Ayika did not hear the name of. There was nothing more they could do until then.

Professor Lizhen lay on the floor, crumpled in the corner of the room under the windows. The dark shape had flung him there. Discarded. Ayika could still feel the throbbing bruise on her chest from where the figure in black had struck her, felt it in the same intermittent way the burns on her hands flared into pain from time to time and then vanished as her mind stayed numb. That man had been so strong, so fast that she could only remember a flash of a white grinning face with shadows writhing behind. If only she had…

Ayika blinked and time jumped forward. The building was now full of noise, the sounds of many people shuffling around. The other staff girls were gone from the doorway which instead was now occupied by the back of someone dressed in a dark green uniform. Ayika just had time to realize that Mrs Jiangsu was no longer in the room before the head of staff re-entered, now accompanied by several other men in varying cuts of dark green city guard uniforms. One of them kneeled beside the carefully draped blanket in the corner and lifted up the edge. Ayika looked away as he pulled it back. The other guards were talking.

"Zhang and the boys got them trussed up in the other rooms?"

Another guard spoke up. "Yeah, we've got 'em both. 'Corse the girly's just a student here too late so no trussing, and the other one isn't a knife man. I'd say a sneaker or a gutter-rat picked up as a lookout. I ain't talked to him yet so I don't have a proper feel, but one look at a bit like him usually tells. Try and figure what's it they took. There's one little dooda missing from that shelf but the staff said none of those foreign deelys were particularly valuable. Just some sort of collection." He looked around the room with a mild glare, seemingly irked that no true villains raised their hands in surrender from behind the bookcase.

The guard then grabbed up some miraculously unburnt papers from the professor's desk. "Huh, looks like this is might be what he was writing right before he bought it. Says something like 'Steps to pacify a foreign incursion in the domestic spirit'. What do you make of that?"

The other guard shrugged, "Some kind of counter-spell to drive off dark spirits?"

The leader shook his head, "Nah, that's priest stuff. This guy here was a teacher. Maybe metaphorical, complaining about all those Islander foreigners, not that I can blame him. And then some random thief bumbles in on him expecting everyone to have gone home already."

"This incident might be more intricate than you hope, sergeant." A new figure swept his way into the room, his body hidden in dark heavy robes. A notorious sigil stood emblazoned across his breast in dull gold thread. "It has the markings of that most dreaded quality. Our subject here had a publishing record."

The guard sergeant was looking out the window instead of at his new fellow and made as if to spit before reconsidering. "Damn, this case is political? That's just great."

Then he turned to face the new speaker and froze, terror sweeping across his face. "Inspector! I...attention!." The other guards, who had been at parade-ground attention since the moment they first saw the inspector, endeavored to somehow increase their posture.

"No need, officer." The Public Safety Agent waved a hand concealed inside his long robe sleeve. He swept into the center of the room and looked down at the poor figure under the sheet. A robe that long ought to have spent half of its time tripping up the wearer, but under the Inspector's steady motions the folds and swaths flowed with his movements like the seams were a part of his body. He made no noise, and his expression betrayed no thought, but an imagined sound like mental clockwork floated in the air. As he completed a half circuit around the floor his eyes jumped up to meet Ayika's. With a silent air of puzzled interest he regarded her, and Ayika stared back.

Without breaking his gaze the Inspector addressed the room. "She is the witness?"

"Um, yes sir." Mrs Jiangsu bobbed nervously outside the threshold. "She'd gone up to bring Mister Lizhen his dinner when we heard the screaming. Like I said, when I got up here the room was going up with lamp oil and she was trying to put out. She hasn't said much yet, but fought like the dickins when we tried to take her downstairs so we just left her there. I can shift her if it pleases you, your honor, sir." As she continued, the normally unflappable servant-master of the school was speaking faster and faster until the words all tumbled out together.

The Inspector didn't bother looking at Jiangsu. He spoke very slowly and methodically. "No need for honor, just Inspector will suffice."

People were frequently nervous around Public Safety Agents. Every one of them was an expert earth bender with well-honed power. The stories about what they were able do were as myriad as they were unsettling. The explanation of what they were _allowed_ to do was simpler; anything.

The agents existed under direct control of the Earth King and operated as the enforcers of his personal will in the city. Everyone in the city loved the King. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of nervousness regarding how frequently his personal will involved people being swallowed by the earth during the night.

This was the man who stood a few feet away from Ayika, but now, in this place, she could not bring herself to be afraid. So she met his eyes and stilled her trembling hands.

"Now, girl," His voice was calm and polite, but there was little warmth. "Could you please tell us what you saw? Was there anyone in the room when you arrived?"

"Yes, I..." Here Ayika stopped. Something strange happened when she tried to remember the white-faced figure. In her memory the form shifted and twisted and brought her to doubt her own mind. But she had seen something real. "When I got up on the landing the lamps were behaving weird. Flames dancing on the wicks. And when I opened the door here the lights all went out, all in an instant." She swallowed, "There was...it was dark, but there was a man, or a person, all dressed in black. Or just black. They hit me, pushed me back into the wall, hard, and ran. I called out but they'd thrown a lamp and I was trying to put out the fire and trying to help him and… I mean I wasn't sure yet that he was…" Ayika cursed herself for choking here but the Inspector ignored her shame.

"Could you provide a description of this man? Did you see a face?"

"No, I… I mean I only saw for a second and in the dark. It was white, with tusks and twisted eyes, like a mask but I swore it moved. And he was strong, so strong, not a bender but like it was something other than human." This last was said in a trailing whisper. Why couldn't she think straight? Her head pounded and the fabric of the world seemed thin and taught under her feet.

The inspector turned away from Ayika for a moment, looking once again at the soot-stained room. The leading guard appeared to take this as an invitation, ignoring most of Ayika's statement.

"Masks again, huh?" he said. "I mean I've been hearing about those guys doing lots of-"

"Too many people hear too many things," the inspector crisply interjected. "We will continue our interviews starting with the detained student. Sargent, during that interval you will inspect the body and inform us if there are any flash-burn marks in addition to the blunt trauma." He swept out towards the door.

The sergeant was confused. "Flash burns...? You mean like something from a damn fire bender or..." Suddenly he realized he was speaking to a particularly powerful and dangerous bender so he corrected. "Er, I mean yes I will, look I mean, sir. Or knife wounds, since those are usually what do in cases like..." he muttered, still hoping for his initial theory of a robbery gone wrong now that he was faced with a political assassination.

The departing inspector stopped in a weary halt. "Officer, the victim has been here for over an hour and there is not a single drop of blood on the floor of this room. Fatal puncture wounds tend to bleed. That document you read on the desk supports other theories. The man had previously been a vocal supporter of the Fire Nation and it sounds like he was in the process of revising his position tonight. 'Pacify a foreign incursion' were his new words. Check the body." He breathed in. "Come Mrs Jiangsu, we will need you to confirm the student's information."

The Public Safety agent left with Jiangsu and Ayika hurried out into the hall after them. She didn't trust herself to witness the forthcoming examinations. Driven by a need to do something, anything, Ayika numbly made her way after the departing inspector. She didn't trust him; he spoke in plural. No one appeared to remember that Ayika even existed so she quietly slid up to the next open door unhindered.

The Inspector and the rest of his crew of guards were inside. He addressed a girl sitting slumped in a chair in the middle of the classroom. She was wearing the school's embroidered student's uniform and her shoulders trembled slightly. "We will need your name, miss."

Black bangs tinged with copper lifted up to reveal a golden face, and the lips parted in an accented reply barely above a whisper. "Mizumi Miohuito."

Near the doorway one of the guards gave a low whistle in recognition of that name, but was cut off by a shove to the kidneys as Ayika rushed in past him.

"You!" Ayika yelled, thrusting an accusatorial finger at the girl in the chair. "What are you doing here? You were spying on the professor this afternoon! What did you do? Tell me!" Ayika had caught her in that classroom. But she but let her go. If Mizumi had something to do with tonight then it was Ayika's fault that...

The Islander girl gaped in shock at this sudden finger of denunciation a few centimeters away from her face. Her mouth worked a few times before she managed to say, "I only needed to obtain something of mine from the school. That is why you found me."

Ayika continued, in her fury ignorant of the confusion among the professionals behind her. "But you never left, did you? Xinfei saw someone moving in this same room right before the attack!"

"Who is Xinfei?" Mizumi blurted, irritation beginning to overcome shock. She was putting on a convincing display of having no idea why Ayika was screaming at her. "I was only-"

"Shut up! Did you let the white faced man in? Why'd you do it? He...He was on your people's blasted side!" The room was growing blurry and wet at the edges, and Ayika's voice hurt. The thought that her own carelessness could have let this girl help kill... She drew her hand back to slap the seated girl as hard as she could but before that her wrist suddenly jerked back in an iron grip.

"That is quite enough."

The Inspector wore stone coated gloves and resisting his grasp was like pushing against a brick wall. Defeated, Aykia sagged and was led to the back of the room, where a guard kept a secure hold on her. As soon as his hand left her wrist, Ayika seemed to vanish from the Public Safety agent's mind and he turned back to the Islander girl as if no interruption had intruded.

"Miss Miohuito, did you witness anything concerning the occurrence tonight?"

Mizumi looked back and forth in disbelief. She pointed at Ayika. "She tried to strike me!"

"Miss." There was no patience in his voice.

She swallowed. "Yes. I was here to obtain something I left behind at the school, as I said. I have not seen anything. That is, I was up here when the lamps went out and when I heard the screaming I hid in case it was something dangerous. Then those porters arrived and would not allow me to leave this room." As she spoke she became more confident. "Now I believe I have caught you up to the time you arrived, so may I be leaving? You have searched and know I stole nothing. My father, Tetzamatl Miohuito, will not be happy that I have been kept this long." She gave the smile of gambler laying down her highest card.

Ayika opened her mouth to express her rage but was surprised when another voice snapped in her place.

"You show some respect, girl! How dare you speak like with a man dead in the next room!" Ayika stared at the huge quivering frame of Mrs Jiangsu. Ayika watched in wonder as the woman's beady eyes glistened with tears, she had never seen Jiangsu show any emotion other than simple anger.

"Dead? What are you…? Oh my god!" Mizumi clapped her hand over her mouth in sudden horror.

The guard sergeant stepped forward. "Sir, this is becoming a circus. Permission to take these girls downstairs?"

The inspector appeared to have lost interest again, and was now looking out the window, his hands held in front of him, palm down at waist level. His breathing was slow and steady and he seemed to be concentrating on something.

Finally, he spoke. "Do so. And collect all the papers from the office, even those damaged by fire. We will inspect them shortly." His eyes opened. "We will leave the initial questioning of the young man to your experienced hands."

Ayika's head whipped around. The young man. The guards had Xinfei.

...


	9. Politics

...

Ayika kicked again at the walls of this disused parlor turned storage area and was again rewarded with bruised toes and little else. The room was now serving a third life as an impromptu cell and evidence storage vault. The guards had stopped returning to stack piles of singed papers from the professor's office but no one had spoken to Ayika or answered any of her questions. From outside the locked door she could faintly hear yelps and cries from Xinfei in the hands of the other guards.

Ayika went over to the door again and yelled at the obstinate planks, pounding against them with her hand. "Let him go! He's got nothing to do with any of this! Just...Raaah!"

"I do not think that is accomplishing anything," Mizumi said from a stool in the corner. She had sat there since they were brought into this makeshift cell. Ayika heard her sniff occasionally, but for all she knew that crying was faked entirely, or only regarding her own capture. Almost sobbing herself in frustration and emotional exhaustion, Ayika pounded on the door again.

Mizumi said, "Girl, if they were going to let you out they would do it without your noise. I am sure that your friend is safe. There are clear laws about what your city guards are permitted do in an interrogation."

Ayika turned from the door with fire in her eyes and saw the other girl flinch as a loud cry of Xinfei's filtered through the walls. Ayika stalked over and said, "My name's Ayika, not girl. And sure there're rules, if you're rich. But for us normal people, if the guards get you alone then it's a boot to the side you're in for 'til they get bored. Not that I'm sure your being rich will help you, since you're a foreigner."

Ayika turned on the table piled up with slightly singed books and class papers. She raised her hands to sweep it all onto the floor before resisting and clamping her arms back to her side in impotent rage.

Mizumi now had a bit of fear in her eyes. "No, you do not think…? My father must be coming and-"

"Ah, yes, I'm sure your father's very rich and important but down here in our world my friend is out there getting worked over by the greenbacks all because I promised him some scraps from the kitchen! He was only at the school at all because I told him to, and now they've grabbed him as part of you people's damn conspiracy!"

Ayika had had enough, so she turned away from Mizumi and returned to kick the door again. Behind her, Mizumi stood up and began to pace alongside one of the evidence tables. Ayika angled her head imperceptibly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the Islander girl looking intently at one of the stacks of papers from Wen's office. As Ayika watched, Mizumi shifted her body slightly to hide the action of sliding something out of the stack.

"There! What is that?" Ayika spun and yelled.

Mizumi jumped, startled. Her face was written with horrified guilt and she was holding a crumpled paper in her hand. She fluttered her mouth to say something but now Ayika was in her face.

"You _were_ after something. Lizhen said that people were going to try to stop him, and you were just waiting to steal from his office! Did you let the killer in? Answer me!"

Mizumi fended off Ayika, pushing her back with a firm strike of her palm. "It is mine, okay!"

Ayika grimaced at the pain from the bruise on her sternum and snapped back. "What do you mean it's yours? You dare to steal from his stuff you uncaring little..." She stopped. Mizumi's eyes were watering.

"It is my essay, all right?! I wrote it in the class and you saw me there. There, take it!" She thrust out the crumpled sheet and yanked it smooth. She held it in front of Ayika who was stunned for a second by this abrupt reversal. "That stupid Lili Gaoli was saying all those things about the Nation and I was so angry and the teacher did not seem to want to stop anything."

The anger began to flow out of Mizumi voice to be replaced with frustrated shame. "I was very angry and I wrote a stupid, angry paper insulting the Earth Kingdom. It would have lost me all of Teacher Wen's respect in my first day so I had to get it back before he read it. I know it was a ridiculous plan but I stayed here after school end time until you found me waiting in that classroom so I had to sneak back later but he was still in his office but I had already committed to that plan so I waited until... everything has just gone all wrong!"

Ayika was stunned. This could be another ploy but she felt that no one could lie quite this convincingly. She had learned by now that the truth was often the most ridiculous answer. Ayika opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a jabbing finger.

Mizumi had now passed from anguish to righteous indignation. "And how can you say I do not care about Teacher Wen? The whole stupiding reason I am locked in here is that I cared what he thought about me! My father told me that he was one of the few who actually understood about our culture and was not the same blind nationalist stooge as the rest of the people in this blasted city!"

The girl's mask of proud fury was marred by the tears glistening in the corner of her eyes, so Ayika briefly looked away. "Look," she said as she heard tears being hurriedly dabbed, "I- "

At that moment both girls heard footsteps approaching from outside and stood back as the door rattled. Two guards were talking, their voices muffled but distinct even behind the closed portal.

"...Yeah, the carriage'd been waiting in the dark down the street for hours but our boys got them." The guards entered, still speaking. "You, Miss Miohuito…" The lead guard gestured to Mizumi. "...you're coming with us for a bit."  
Ayika ducked to the side as Mizumi advanced to face the guards. The foreign girl's composure had returned and now she was using an exaggerated high class voice, only slightly marred by her buzzing accent.

"I do not believe I shall do any such thing," Mizumi said. "I have requested that word be sent to my father, Tetzamatl Miohuito, and I will be awaiting his arrival here. If you wish to assist me, you may fetch me a refreshment."

Ayika raised an eyebrow at this sass, but the wicked grin on the guard's face did not look promising. "Of course Miss," he smirked. "I'll make sure to take you to your father. As a matter of fact, we can go right now. He's in the next room. We caught him in the getaway-coach right outside the school." He leaned in close to Mizumi's now petrified face. "I'm sure that Public Safety will treat you both with everything due your status."

The other guard grabbed Mizumi by the arm and said, "Come."

Mizumi panicked and blurted out, "Wait! You have to bring her as well," flinging out a hand to point at Ayika.

"And why should I?" said the guard.

"I…" Mizumi started haltingly, searching for an explanation.

The other guard interrupted, " _Eh_ , take 'em both. Can't be too careful with stuff Public Safety wants, though heaven knows why they need all his papers to figure out he was beat to death. Even if they're women, they could still mess something up in here. Get her out before the Inspector sees."

As Ayika was shoved outside along with the other girl she leaned in to whisper bitterly. "Thanks."

Mizumi whispered back, harsh and quick. "Well, you are the one who said not to be alone with the _zamat_ guards!" Ayika assumed that was a foreign swear word and silently made note to remember its pronunciation.

"Shut up, the both of you," the guard said, cuffing Ayika lightly across the head.

They were led over to a larger parlor that during the day served the school as a small greeting room just past the front entrance hall. In the corner was the looming bulk of Mrs Jiangsu looking, for the first time Ayika had ever seen, quite helpless and lost. Across the room, surrounded by a number of uniformed city guards, stood a thin man dressed in a ornate but practical black robe of foreign cut trimmed with deep rich red. His eyes were dark not hazel, but his black hair bound up in a topknot held a hint of the familiar hint of rust.

"Father!"

At the sound of Mizumi's voice the man in black turned and for an instant relief and confusion spread across his face in equal measure. He started speaking very quickly in his native tongue. All Ayika could catch was Mizumi's name but then Mister Miohuito interrupted himself and began to yell at the guards who held her. "What are you doing with your hands on my daughter?"

Ayika heard a calm reply from somewhere behind her. "She is perfectly unharmed. She appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time." The Public Safety Inspector's voice was dark and smooth like oiled cloth as he stepped into the room. At his entrance, Mizumi's father narrowed his eyes but he rose up in firm composure.

"Ah, someone in command here. Finally," he began, addressing the new player. "I wish to know many things, starting of course with why I was dragged out of my carriage on a public street to be interrogated within my daughter's school! I would also care to mention that I have taken the liberty of informing Trade Representative Amantza Tailang of my circumstances. Since the unfortunate death of Ambassador Naruhama, he has assumed many of those governmental powers and duties." There was no smirk on his lips but one could be heard in his voice. Mizumi tried to say something but her father raised a single finger and she fell quiet.

The Inspector stepped closer silently, analyzing Mister Miohuito. In the corner, the guard holding Ayika cleared his throat nervously. "Yeah, a runner boy dashed out as we were moving in on the carriage. He was off into the night 'fore a blink."

The Inspector gave no reaction. "It is no matter. Transport on the trams has ceased for the night and it will be well over four hours before anyone can return from the Exclusion."

Mizumi's father smiled. "It is fortunate then that I happen to know the Representative is dining tonight at Mister Gaoli's residence nearby. You will be pleased to hear that he is likely already on his way."

Again, no change came over the face of the Public Safety agent but the tension of the room increased. The air between them vibrated with such intensity that when the Inspector's hand finally twitched within his voluminous dark robes Ayika had to resist jumping out of pure reflex. However, that motion was was apparently an order, not magic sign.

As a few of his men flowed out the door, he continued. "While we await the Representative's arrival perhaps you could answer a few of our questions unaided, Mister Miohuito? Your presence on a dark street wants explanation."

Miohuito returned the blank expression, "I was awaiting the designated time to meet with an acquaintance, and more than that I do not feel obligated to provide."

"Such a friend indeed, to wait for them in the dark for what local residents have attested to be well over two hours. And it seems that your acquaintance has yet to reward your patience."

At that moment the door behind the inspector opened and two guards entered carrying between them a drooping third person, one who staggered under the pain of the bruises that showed through his ragged clothes.

Ayika let out a cry. "Xinfei!" She shook free of her captor and darted across, catching hold of her friend as he sagged towards the floor when the guards released him. She turned on the guards. "You monsters, what did you do to him? You know he didn't do anything!"

During this display the Inspector carefully regarded Miohuito's impassive face and appeared disappointed with what he saw. At the agent's signal a guard shoved Ayika out of the way, grabbing Xinfei's hair to force his face up so it was clearly visible to everyone in the room.

The Inspector continued to speak, eyes searching Mizumi's father for any sign of recognition. "As you can see, we are still conducting our analysis of tonight's events, and we would be grateful for any particular insight you might provide."

"No!" Mizumi shouted, causing her father to whip a wide eyed glance at her, "Father, they are only trying to pin Teacher Wen's death on someone from the Nation! That boy is just some innocent person who was nearby when they arrived!"

For the first time tonight Ayika saw real anger flash into the Inspector's dark eyes. By the time he returned his gaze to Mizumi's father, the man's expression was smooth, showing only carefully modulated shock.

Miohuito said, "Wen Lizhen is dead? This is terrible. It was Mister Lizhen himself who sent word to me to meet him at his office in this school. If something has indeed happened to him I urgently require you tell me all. Has he truly been killed? For such an outspoken proponent of trade to die so soon after Ambassador Naruhama is a blow indeed."

The Inspector was not pleased with this answer. There was tension in his voice as he continued. "We would appreciate the opportunity to view the message the deceased sent to you. Any evidence of the man's final day has the chance of contributing to an explanation."

"It was an oral message."

The Inspector was stone-faced. "Of course it was."

From outside the room there was the a commotion of footsteps and gradually approaching commotion. Only snatches of one side of the argument could be discerned.

"Yes, of course I understand but…!"

"..."

"What? I have to get in there and…!"

"..."

"This is my school! That's it, I'm entering!"

The doors clattered back to reveal the panting frame of the headmaster, Tian'er Gang. For a brief moment the skinny, worry-faced man was lit up with righteous indignation. All of melted off him as soon he saw the powerful occupants of this room. Public Safety, rich foreigners, and enough armed men to shut down a small riot. Gang's mouth worked silently as one of the more alert guards quietly closed the door behind him.

The Inspector didn't turn at all and yet he said with perfect cordiality, "Ah, Mister Gang. We are led to believe you are the headmaster here. We would appreciate your cooperation in several matters very shortly."

"Er, um, yes. Of course," the headmaster nodded frantically.

"That can be now. I believe I have told the good inspector everything that I can at the moment," Miohuito interjected. "And I also have questions for you, Headmaster Gang, such as why my daughter has been kept here when she should have been returned to my house hours ago!"

"I...er," Gang stammered.

The Inspector raised his voice by a single degree, "You may leave this room, Mister Gang. Our conversation with the gentleman is not yet complete."

"Of course, I would be happy to," Gang said as he started to sweat. "Oh, Mrs Jiangsu! Ah, yes, there you are. Come, we will… Ah, and Mister Miohuito, I would be happy to take your daughter to my office and convey my personal apologies to you and yours for absolutely everything that happened tonight!" He gently placed a hand on Mizumi's shoulder and directed her to the door, all while bowing constantly back towards the two figures in the center of the room.

Ayika was carefully dabbing away spots of blood from Xinfei's bruised and trembling arm with the edge of her apron when the headmaster snatched her by the shoulder and hauled her up. Gang said, "And if you have no objection I will also see to the discipline of my workers to ensure that you receive full cooperation in everything you may need?"

The Inspector nodded without looking, so despite her protests Ayika was pulled away from Xinfei and out of the room. Headmaster Gang was livid and terrified, alternating his questions between Mizumi and Ayika with such an emotional speed the experience gave both of the girls mental whiplash.

"Miss Miohuito, I am so sorry you have gotten caught up in this. Is there anything that I can do for you or your father? And you, girl, what were you doing welcoming a criminal into my school?! Again Miss Miohuito, I would like to express my profound sympathy for any distress you have experienced on this unfortunate night. Tribal girl! I can't have someone who's been questioned by Public Safety on a murder employed here! Just... just don't come back here for a few weeks and then I'll see about what to do with you! And Miss, I would perfectly understand if you need to remain at home for several days to overcome the shock of this experience. The well-being of all our students is my utmost priority."

Ayika was still reeling with the shock of effectively losing her job when an unexpected voice spoke up. Mrs Jiangsu cleared her throat softly and reluctantly interjected. "Headmaster, the officers had no issue with our girl here. And she did help put out the fire that could have sent this whole place to ash if it spread." Ayika could see the strain this unusual level of support left on the woman. Ayika was moved to make thanks but Jiangsu's returned look showed that this concession to the truth did not mean that she like Ayika any better than before. Ayika stayed silent.

Gang was shaken and confused. "She did? Well…well there's still that villain they caught! She was almost cradling him in that room, surely some nefarious lover!"

Jiangsu interrupted Ayika's angry denials. "Sir, I saw that boy before the officers got to him and I sincerely doubt him capable of menacing a chicken," Jiangsu said wearily. "He was trying to drag a flaming rug out of the door when we found him, the idiot."

Mizumi spoke up, "That is right! You must have the city guard authorities let that innocent boy go. You did say that you wanted to make things up to me. This will be a beginning."

"Well, hmm, I suppose I could relay your entreaty." He looked around as if there were a great many things he would rather do than make demands of Public Safety. "At least the priest I sent for should be here shortly. This whole thing is a ghastly business. I must be able to assure every parent that the school grounds have been thoroughly cleansed of all spiritual contamination as is right and proper." Headmaster Gang had a very practical attitude towards religion that tended to focus on the areas in which it intersected with the school's income.

Suddenly, Ayika heard the sound of bells. It came from outside the compound, at the front gate. Relief flooded over Gang's face. "Ah, that must be the priest now!"

It was not.

...


	10. Priests

...

The front doors of the school opened with a slow and dramatic sweep but the man who entered was not the expected priest. His dark red robes rose to stiff flaring shoulders of folded cloth in a style that proclaimed him a foreigner, the two assistants behind him indicated that he was important, and his angular calculating face showed he was someone set on seizing control of the night's events. Ayika suddenly recognized him. She remembered that pointed little beard and the black top-knot of hair. She'd seen him marching in the Ambassador's funeral procession. He'd been smirking then too.  
The city guard standing watch outside the interrogation room stepped forward to block the foreigner's path and said, "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to halt and wait for-"

"Tailang," the newcomer said smoothly, with barely a hint of an Islander accent.

"What?"

The man smiled and spoke again, "I am Trade Representative Amantza Tailang of the Fire Lord's mission to the Earth King in Ba Sing Se, and I believe there are people inside that room who would be very interested to hear that name. I advise you inform them."

The guard tried to counter Tailang's piercing smile with his own glare but he soon shrank back in his green uniform. This confrontation was above his pay-grade. He quickly turned and slid open the parlor door.

"Inspector Yang? There's a man here who-"

"Thank you very much," Tailang said as he reached past the guard and seized hold of the door before swiftly entering. "I am an old acquaintance of Public Safety Inspector Yang and would be dishonored if I could not present myself personally." Ayika wiggled free of Headmaster Gang's hold and darted forward to get back to Xinfei's side. This Tailang guy appeared set on seizing control of every room he entered and in this disruption Ayika saw the chance to possibly sneak her friend away.

Inside the chamber, Mister Miohuito sat on the opposite side of the room looking frustrated and harassed but he leaped to his feet when he saw the Representative. "Tailang! Wen Lizhen has been killed, and I am being-!"

"Oh dearest spirits, has the good professor been killed?" Tailang said, interrupting. "That is terrible news for all! Inspector, have you discovered yet who could have done such a thing?" This man was smooth but Ayika would not use the word 'sincere' to describe him. 'Politician' was a better word. Whether he was truly distraught or not, every word he said schemed for advantage.

Whatever Tailang might claim, Inspector Yang didn't look like a friend. In fact the usually expressionless Yang now appeared to want to to wrench open up the earth and have it swallow Tailang whole. But this was a rare circumstance for a Public Safety agent when he was not permitted to do so. Instead, he respectfully bowed his head.

"Our investigation is newly begun and there are many avenues open at this juncture."

Tailang shook his head in expressive distress. "Tragic, just tragic. Poor Wen. I'd spoken to the man many times and I cannot imagine anyone wishing to harm him. Next to the late Ambassador, there was no more eloquent proponent of trade and cultural exchange in this city. However," and here Tailang appeared to pause in thought. "Ever since his dismissal from the University he'd been receiving, entirely unwarranted, criticism for his views. The conservatives have said some very nasty things. I even heard that today your guards had to clear a body of agitators protesting outside this very school?"

Inspector Yang's eyes narrowed but his voice remained smooth and calm, "We are of course looking into all possible scenarios, Trade Representative."

Mister Miohuito drew close to his countryman and said, "Tailang, this matter…" He stopped and looked out the open door to where Mizumi and Ayika had taken up position side by side in the hall outside. "Mizumi, I need you to just wait out there for a moment. We can...When I am done in here I will take you home."

Mrs Jiangsu, seizing the initiative from a headmaster paralyzed by too many conflicting powers to appease, firmly guided the two girls off to a side corridor despite Ayika's protests. There they almost ran into a procession of acolytes following the city priest who'd finally arrived. The priest's robe was sewn with metal disks and across his shoulders he bore a sash of bear fur. Behind him, the neophytes were dressed in simple brown robes patched with yellow and green insignia. Ayika saw this holy procession being directed up the stairs to the site of their task by one of the school porters.

She looked up at Jiangsu. If she couldn't get to Xinfei then she at least could bear witness for Wen. She cast through her mind to form an articulation for the wordless need inside her; the desperate need to do something. The steel in the housekeeper's face softened as she saw Ayika's pleading expression so she said, "Well, all right. Just keep out of the way."

Ayika made her way up the stairs, following the scent of holy incense. She was almost to the upper floor when she noticed the sound of a second set of feet on the steps behind her. She glanced back to see that Mizumi had followed. Why, Ayika didn't know. She barely knew herself why she was climbing back up to that place. Together and without a word they made their way to that dreadful room to the sound of priestly chanting.

Inside partially scorched office, the holy assistants drew forth materials; incense, chalk for symbols, and oil for purification of the door threshold. Ayika and Mizumi stood back in the hallway, where they could see into the room without being in the way. Ayika watched the priest, his robe dimly glinting with the shifting of its metal disks, perform the rights to pacify a ghost of untimely death.

The gist of these rituals was familiar, Grandma Aka had done many like them down in the Bed. Murders were a part of city life but such a ghost, shorn of body and soul by another's hand, needed the proper ministrations or it could turn violent and powerful. The few days before a proper funeral could seal that energy were dangerous. Only once the soul was safely set on the way to reincarnation could mourners leave proper offerings without empowering a ghost. From the doorway, Ayika watched blue smoke of the incense began to swirl around the room as the priest bowed to the eight cardinal directions. The room began to waver as the misty forms of the holy smog swayed through the air with their own vaporous motions.

Ayika shook herself slightly as Mizumi spoke softly at her shoulder. "Did you know him for a long time?"

Ayika looked away as the priest began to minister to Wen's... as he began to lift the edge of the blanket. "Only for a year. Since he started working here."

Then blanket was back in place and she could look again. This priest must have been exceptionally experienced. Ayika had seen death purification rites performed before, but there was something different here. The back of her neck prickled as the priest painted his prayer onto a thin clay tablet. Then there was a sharp crack as he snapped the icon in half and Ayika shivered. Before tonight she had never felt so clearly the power these rituals supposedly invoked. Of course, she'd never actually been in the room when someone died before.

Somewhere behind her heart she felt something receding. But there was a catch that confused the comforting rhythm, something wrong. No, what was she thinking? She was just getting dizzy, imagining things. There were only the thin blue threads of smoke and the gentle chanting of the priest. She shook her head.

Mizumi was looking at her with concern, so Ayika whispered, "Thanks for sticking up for Xinfei."

"Who...? Oh, I mean, it is ok. No one deserves to be beat in that manner just because the officials are angry. He is your friend."

To Mizumi that sounded to be a simple calculation. One that Ayika would not have thought anyone of Mizumi's status, foreign or domestic, might have made. Together they continued to watch the cleansing ritual. Ayika tried to ignore the intrusive thought that it wouldn't work.

After much chanting of prayers, the burning sticks were snuffed and the acolytes gently gathered to bear their sad burden away. Ayika stepped to the side and turned away as they lifted the special stretcher. After a moment Mizumi turned with her.

Then the procession passed down the hall and Ayika stepped forward through the consecrated portal. The priest was gone. There was only one acolyte left, quietly sweeping up after the ceremony. Ayka wandered aimlessly, looking around at the blackened corner where the lamp had smashed, and the desk swept free of its papers, and the table with its circle of candles around the package left…

There was nothing there; the package was gone. Ayika shut her eyes and cast her memory back, to before the sun had set. Remembering the strange circle of candles, around a paper wrapped package on the table, delivered by… Ayika opened her eyes. "The gardener!"

"What?" Mizumi said in surprise and confusion at this sudden exclamation. Behind her the acolyte froze in the middle of his sweeping, equally startled.

Ayika continued, "Ma'er!"

"I do not know what that is!"

"The man from before. Called himself a garden designer. He was here making threats about the professor. He said that Lizhen would face trouble if he continued to publish and there was the assistant, that Tian kid, who left the package!"

Ayika felt like her mind was suddenly a runaway cart rolling downhill. Her thoughts were spinning off faster than she could form words. The guards had said some little nicknack had been the only thing stolen from the office, but no one else had known about the existence of Ma'er's gift. The attacker with the white face had been holding something in his other hand. Wait, a little round mirror, Lizhen had set that next to the package when Ayika last saw it. That had to be the nicknack. They were both gone and she was the only one who knew.

"Quick, Mizumi, did you, when we were in that room where they were storing the paper's from this office, did you see a package wrapped in crumpled brown thick paper? About yay big?" She held her hands apart to form a shape a bit larger than a serving plate.

"I-"

Ayika grasped her by the shoulders and looked into the other girl's eyes. "Please, I need you to think."

Mizumi blinked at Ayika's face suddenly being so close to her own. "Um, no. No, I do not think there was anything like that in there. But-"

Ayika spun around as despair gave way to a sick species of furious exhilaration. "I knew it! Those guards said they put everything they found in that room. The white mask must have tried to steal whatever was in that package. You!" Ayika pointed at the formerly sweeping acolyte, who was blinking in astonishment at the sudden burst of intensity. "Yes, you in the priesty get-up. Did you see anyone take anything out of the room, anything bigger than a teapot?"

The acolyte was frozen, having just listened to this entire frenzied conversation held as if he was not in the room. Now he looked around as if she could be addressing anyone else. "Er, no? Well, I mean the body but-"

"Thank you very much. Now get out."

"Wha-"

"I said get!"

Oblivious to the scurrying young man, Ayika began to pace, exulting in the frantic energy that swelled up within her.

Mizumi looked concerned, "Um...Ay'yeka?"

Ayika waved her hand without looking. Mispronouncing her name couldn't bother her now. She felt feverish. "Close enough. But that Public Safety earth bender is too busy trying to pin everything on your father or some other Islander that he won't listen to anyone like me and certainly not you. In fact the gardener might even be another government agent! They plant something to draw in the assassin and their best critic is silenced."

Mizumi brought her eyebrows together in skepticism. "I am not sure that makes..." She stopped as she realized something "Wait, you believe my father is innocent?"

"Of course he is. Like you said, they were just trying to pin it on a foreigner."

"But you were screaming at me that I was part of a plot to-!"

Ayika brushed through the indignation. "No, Ma'er must have something to do with tonight. I have to do something."

Mizumi sighed in frustration. "Such as perhaps tell any of the responsible authorities about what you know?"

"What? I've got no proof. Can you imagine a wharf-rat accusing a working citizen of a conspiracy like this?" That was the root of it. There was nothing someone like her could do. Ayika's manic energy began to fade.

"I know, I am trying to help. I am simply attempting to determine what level of lunacy you are currently operating on. Also, what did you say about a rat?"

Ayika now felt despair rising back up. She nodded vaguely at Mizumi's question. As quickly as it had come she'd burnt through the surge of adrenaline leaving only exhaustion. It was all too much. She was just one servant girl, not someone who could actually fix anything. She felt sick to her stomach and her limbs ached where a moment ago she'd been trembling with energy.

She quietly said, "I...I should go down. I need to check on Xinfei. He needs my help." She was hit by a new wave of guilt and sorrow that she had allowed herself to forget him even for a second. With that she slowly walked off towards the staircase. A moment later she heard Mizumi follow her.

Downstairs, things seemed to have been wrapped up. Inspector Yang glowered in the corner as the Representative smoothly lead Mister Miohuito towards the front door.

"I am so glad that I could help with your investigation," Representative Tailang said. "It's a shame that the nationalists have gone so far. If only they had stuck to painting those awful slogans, especially when an innocent servant boy pays for ill-directed suspicions. I trust he will be released as Miss Miohuito and the kind headmaster suggested."

Not waiting for any confirmation, Tailang continued. "I will meet with your Security Minister tomorrow to lend him all our resources so that the investigation might proceed as smoothly as possible. I will also make a direct appeal to the King on your behalf, when I go to accept his inevitable reconsideration of allowing the Nation to deploy our own benders on city soil. It is a shame things have gotten so bad." Ayika didn't understand what all of that would mean but it didn't sound like this Tailang was doing anything he did not look forward to doing.

"We appreciate your cooperation." Inspector Yang bowed. The tone of his voice never varied yet all the same Ayika could hear the anger behind his words.

Headmaster Gang bowed repeatedly to any and all, babbling an ignored stream of abasements. At the sight of the two girls descending the stairs he gasped in relief and quickly half herded and half shoved Mizumi towards her father with a flurry of apologies. When Miohuito merely raised a confused eyebrow at Gang, the headmaster looked down at Ayika who he'd mistakenly grabbed and performed a quick swap.

Mizumi took her father's hand but looked back at at Ayika and said, "Father! You have to listen, the Inspector should know-" The rest was muffled by a hand across her mouth.

"Not now!" her father hissed, glaring at Inspector Yang who watched impassively. "We will be home soon enough." He then muttered something quick and sharp in the Islander language as they swept off.

Caught in the exiting procession of priests and officials, Mizumi quickly turned back towards Ayika. As their eyes met the Islander girl mouthed something, but Ayika could not tell what it was. Then Mizumi was gone. Ayika saw her own chance to escape in the confusion. When no guards were watching she slowly made her way over to Xinfei. She touched his hand and motioned for silence even as she winced at his bruises. Seeing that no one was guarding him per se, she decided to take the Representative's word as a release order. Xinfei agreed with a nod.

With all the suspicion focused on the foreigners, Ayika and Xinfei managed to get out the front door without incident. The space outside the school gate was a flurry of activity as two foreign-built carriages tried to depart past the priest's palanquin bearers. Adding to the confusion, residents of the surrounding blocks had come out into the dark to witness this commotion. The city guards were hard pressed to maintain their illusion of control while separating crowds of residents, who could be struck with impunity, from the priests and foreigners who could not.

Xinfei's legs were still shaking from his mistreatment so Ayika put his arm around her shoulders to help them hurry away. She made their way out, hoping with all her strength that the Inspector wouldn't materialize.

A few of the gawking locals started muttering as they saw a tribal girl carrying a bruised and battered young man, but fortunately the guards were much more focused on glaring at the Islander folks. Ayika let out a brief prayer thanking xenophobia for working in her favor for once and hurried Xinfei on through the crowd. At the edge of the lamplight spilling from the gates the spectators thinned and Ayika finally breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped out onto empty pavement. They were free with only a long dark walk out to Kuang Harbor before them.

A sharp voice hissed in the shadows. "And so the story goes. A resplendent way to occasion your entrance to the true world, I must say."

Ayika jerked up, causing Xinfei to groan as he leaned heavily on her. The gibberish was coming from her right. A tall figure stood apart from the watching crowd, dressed in black out in the dark beyond the pool of yellow lamplight. Something he wore made the soft sound of metal on metal as he shifted, but he seemed to be facing the commotion at the front gate instead talking to Ayika. She could barely make out the man's silhouette but he wasn't paying attention to them so she just kept a eye on him and encouraged Xinfei to speed up. Whoever that was, they weren't Public Safety and that was all Ayika cared about right now.

Once she turned the next street-corner Ayika finally relaxed, thanking the sliver of moonlight that lit their way. Then a tickle of air pressed against her ear with the sound of a faint metallic click.

"Now you can see. Don't be afraid, river child, we welcome you."

The voice whispered at her shoulder but when Ayika spun around there was nothing around but a dark and empty street. She and Xinfei were alone in the dark. Whoever he was, the speaker had managed to disappear. If she hadn't imagined it in the first place.

" _Argh_ , Ayika! Why?" Xinfei groaned from the ground where she'd accidentally dropped him. With an apology, she shouldered him up again and together they made their way down the long streets that led out of the city guiding by the distant gas lamps on the Fifth Hill. On those empty roads Ayika was plagued by the feeling of multitudes of watching eyes but every time she turned she saw nothing. Nothing but more shadows, dark and leering.

It was many kilometers back to the Bed, through two wall gates, past guards who looked at them with suspicion but allowed them by since they were heading out. The City didn't care much about who left it. Even when Ayika managed to hitch them a ride on night-soil cart on its way out to the farms, by the time they entered Kuang Harbor they were both was exhausted and shaken. Down in the Bed, she could barely communicate to Xiaobao what had happened to his brother, and left both of them hurriedly with the promise of talking tomorrow.

Her own family was a greater obstacle. Ayika's mother alternately hugged her close in relief and threw fierce diatribes for staying out so late. Her father just sat in the corner looking more worried than Ayika could bear to see. When she tried to explain her story it seemed they refused to listen, only hearing that she'd effectively been fired from her job. It was all Ayika could do to convince them to eventually snuff out the lights and end the interrogation for the night.

As she collapsed on her futon, Ayika was so tired her flesh ached. But the instant she closed her eyes she found sleep was far away. Lying in the bed she had once shared with her grandmother and now shared with a younger brother who seemingly grew extra writhing limbs while unconscious, Ayika stared at the ceiling. Her bones were heavy but she still felt the press of imagined eyes; murderers, Public Safety agents, and even the household totems sitting in their crude little shrine in the corner of the apartment.

Her grandmother had carved those little spirit idols; the fox who watches over hunters, the whale who watches over sailors, the seal who holds sway over ice-flows, and the green spirit under the waves who held the secret of healing. Aka had never prayed to them. At least not that Ayika had seen. Rather, Grandma Aka had mostly given the totems frequent sharp looks such as one might give a toddler prone to getting in trouble.

Ayika had rarely been interested when Grandma Aka started to grumble about spirits. Now she wished she had listened to those stories. Was there a spirit who watched over dancing lantern flames and funny little professors? What power protected the monsters of Public Safety, or strange men with white faces? Who watched over school maids?

Well, she did not need someone watching over her. She would be the one who took action. She wouldn't let Professor Wen's death be another thing that just 'happened' in the city's unpredictable vastness. She wouldn't just stand by and be useless again. She would...

Ayika closed her eyes and tried to sleep but once again she saw Wen's gentle look when she last spoke to him. She saw Xinfei groaning, battered and bruised in his apartment; his brother's confused concern. And Mizumi's eyes, turned gold in the light of the priest's candle flame.

...


	11. Investigation

...

"Stop picking at it."

Ayika gently slapped Xinfei's hand away from the bandage wrapped around his chest under his vest. He in turn scowled at her and leaned back against the shady wall of the alley they were lurking in. A few paces away people walked along the crowded sunlit street, carrying whicker crates or escorting small children by the hand, all dressed in the simple but well made clothes of this moderately prosperous Lower Ring district. Two old men sat on barrels, loudly chatting between the arrayed wares of their neighboring family shops which both spilled out from the impossibly narrow premisses onto the packed dirt street beside it's little drainage channel.

Just across this quiet side-street from the alley there stood an octangular green door in a cracked plaster wall that wrapped around a small house and what Ayika assumed was an equally small garden. Not that she could see any garden from here. The two halves of the door were securely shut, studded with circles of greening bronze while the rest of the house's wall reached up a meter past the top of her head. To each side stood small apartment buildings, dipped in flagstone stone at their feet before transitioning to white-washed walls all the way up to the dark clay-tiled eaves which hung over little windows.

She and Xinfei had spent more than half the day tracking down leads across kilometers of the lower city to find where that so called 'garden designer' named Ma'er lived. Now she was stopped by a single door. Ayika was starting to think that her grand investigative strategy might have some holes. However, that did not mean she was going to give into Xinfei's lack of enthusiasm.

"He has to come out sometime, right? So I guess we can just stay here all day and maybe tomorrow as well," Xinfei said, thick with sarcasm as he grumbled and gently fingered the bruises on his ribs again.

She did not bother looking back behind her in the alley. "Shut up, you should have stayed home with your mom and healed in bed instead of following me around half the city."

"Why? I've got the poultices you made and your Gran used so say these things are mostly cured by time. Time goes by just as fast with you as at home."

"You need rest and you know it. Xiaobao said so."

"What and let you get arrested for poking around in the Lower Ring? What even is your plan anyway? If the gate was wide open and we knew for certain this was that gardener's house, then what? How does all this help a dead teacher?"

Ayika muttered indistinctly and continued to stare at that obstinate green door. There was a frustrating truth to what he said. When this day started she had followed a vague fantasy of finding some damning evidence that linked this Ma'er to the murderer and turning it all over to the guards for some measure of justice and answers. But last night's righteous fury was giving way to exhaustion. That 'gardener' with the scars on his cheeks had brought a package, threatened the professor, and the white-faced figure had killed Lizhen and stolen it back away. Probably. That was all she had, and no way to prove anything.

Ayika pressed a knuckle against her eyebrow. She was so tired. After everything that had happened she was not sure if she had slept more than a couple minutes last night. Still, she had to do something. What was it that had gotten Lizhen murdered?

Then the doubt whispered in her mind again. Why was she spending this much effort? People died all the time. Even more frequently in the City, and if you got all the way down to Ayika's home in the Bed it wasn't even noteworthy. What had Lizhen done to earn this loyalty? Nothing. Nothing but be a decent man. He tried to remember her name. A small courtesy, but one that no one else at the school had bothered with since Ayika could always be distinguished as 'the tribal girl'. Lizhen had been kind. Kind, brilliant, and had not made her feel like a servant's position was so far beneath him. And he had been killed in front of her while she was powerless to do anything. If things like this just happened beyond anyone's control how could she ever feel safe again? She needed to do...something.

Almost without her noticing it, Ayika's lips began to move. One hand felt at her sternum where she was still tender from the sudden attack in the dark last night. She mumbled, "The black figure with a white face. It was... I, there something about it. Something beyond just a person who..." She trailed off, not knowing what she meant to say herself. She was grasping at straws.

Xinfei looked at her with quiet concern. Ayika was his oldest friend and despite whatever he might insist, there was a reason he chose to trudge through all these streets and alleys with bruised ribs.

"You were freaked out. As you should have been! I mean, someone was mur..." He reconsidered his sentence. "Hey, I saw that masked guy in the school too. He slammed into me as he was running out! Then he ran up the wall like a stage ninja on a wire in an opera but he was just a guy with acrobatics training or something, not magic or anything. A guy who's long gone."

He rubbed his hand through his rumpled spiky hair. "I'm regretting telling you those crazy rumors about the stupid Society of the Mask stuff now if it's gotten you thinking about conspiracies and all that. There are always rumors around the city about political schemes, no need to pay attention to this one. People get killed. Robbery or politics, I don't think that teacher would want you risking yourself for him."

Whatever she had seen, Ayika could not leave it to end like that. Even if Xinfei was right, she couldn't listen to him. She needed to do something. She couldn't let that be it. Who could live in that world. And her hands were still trembling.

Shaking off thoughts of that horrible burning room and strange shadows, she clenched her hands into fists and strode across the street, smoothly sidestepping a passing man carrying two large baskets hanging from each end of the pole over his shoulders. Ayika hopped over a small, recessed drainage channel and squeezed into the tiny alley that bordered Ma'er's walled garden. She heard the slapping of Xinfei's sandals as he dashed up behind her.

"Seriously Ayika, what are you doing here?" He said as he turned to nervously look back out this alley. "That Public Safety agent from the school knows your face! You're a witness; you're on the gov's radar. If you're thinking about doing what I know you are, it's a really bad idea!" He whispered as loudly as he could manage without alerting everyone on the nearby street.

Ayika continued her skulking path. Deep in this other alley, which to judge by these tight dimensions was more of a surveying accident than a civic plan, there was a small wicker door set in Ma'er's plastered wall. Here and there that pale plaster was flaking to reveal the dark underlying brick. This little wicker door was an entry point to the gardener's property but as Ayika pressed her eye to a gap she saw that the door was clearly visible from the open walled first floor of the house. She could discern someone moving around in that exposed front room. Ayika exhaled in frustration. Sneaking inside by this way was not an option.

"No way you're sneaking into his place that way," Xinfei cautioned; a frustratingly accurate echo of her own mind.

Ayika drew her face back from peering through the gate and said, "I know! I just...never mind. Look, maybe if we could cause a distraction of some-"

"No! Just no, Ayika! I know you're tore up about that guy you worked for dying but I've already taken enough hits from the guards and you won't have any foreign princess to help you if we get nabbed again. I'm sorry but we'll just have to do without some breaking and entering today. Please, all right?"

Ayika's nails dug into the flesh of her palm but she knew Xinfei was right. She still looked down at the alley floor covered in dust and shreds of a few feathers from some ill fated bird. She knew that the expression on his face would only be one of sincere concern for her safety. She knew she was acting ridiculously. Ayika sighed and without any reply squeezed past Xinfei to make her way back to the road. With barely a whisper she let out a prayer.

"Please, spirits, gods. Help me do...something."

A loud wooden knocking rang out from the street and she jerked her head up. Pressing up against the alley wall, Ayika quickly crept back to the street mouth. A peek around the corner showed a curtained palanquin newly laid down in the middle of the narrow thoroughfare beside four grey-vested bearer-men. The passenger, now disembarked and currently rapping quite heavily on Ma'er's green gate, was Mizumi Miohuito of the Fire Nation.

Ayika's mouth fell open. "What the...?"

"What? What is it?" Xinfei interrupted from behind her. In the narrow space between the wall and adjacent house he could not fit past her to look.

"Shhhh!"

The foreign girl smacked the door again. Now that she was out of her Legacy School for Young Ladies uniform, Mizumi was an even more striking sight than previously. She was clad in loose trousers under a short embroidered tunic held tight with a broad cloth belt in a color that set off the tint of copper in her straight dark hair, all of which was almost scandalously masculine by Kingdom standards. Mizumi's bearing was the same as at the school, military straight, with confident gaze that met the eye of everyone she passed. Why on earth was she here?

The front gate to the gardener's yard cracked open and Ayika saw enough to recognize Ma'er's nervous assistant, Tian. He poked his head out and almost received a rap from the next knock for his trouble, which did not improve his confidence. Mizumi was almost as surprised but she recovered in an instant, drew back her hand just short of drumming his forehead and spoke before Tian could open his mouth.

"Ah, yes. It is good day to you. This is the house of the garden designer Ma'er?" Mizumi announced all this with rapid if accented courtesy. In fact, Ayika felt that she was intentionally playing up her accent more than was normal for her.

"I...uh..." the young man stammered in confusion.

"Excellent," Mizumi continued, her tongue rolling the words along at a rapid clip. "Go on and tell your master that I am remaking a piece of our Exclusion property as a birthday gift to my father and I heard that a man named Ma'er was well regarded as a competent craftsman."

"Er...Yes, I just...but..." Tian looked even worse for wear than the last time Ayika had seen him at the school. There were dark circles under his eyes and his nerves looked ready to fail completely before Mizumi's cheerful assault.

Mizumi heard the words she chose to hear. "Oh, you are too kind! I would be honored to wait inside." With that her hand shot out to shove the gate open. In a flash she had snaked past the befuddled assistant gardener who was left to hurriedly shut the door and chase after her towards the main house.

Ayika grinned at this fortune and shoved her way back down the alley past Xinfei who was struggling to remain abreast with events.

"Wait," he began. "Was that that girl from the-?"

"Shush, I don't know what's happening but we need to act quick." Ayika was back at the wicker side gate in an instant and drew a thin wooden scraper from her belt's pocket. She knew from long experience that no house with servants ever had a well-locked service gate during the middle of the day. Sure enough, a little fiddling between the gate and wall allowed her to catch the simple wood latch and flip it up. The gate creaked slightly as she inched it open and through the widening gap she could clearly see Ma'er's house.

A full quarter of bottom floor was a single parlor that, when its full length wooden screens were open as they were today, melded freely with the small outside garden of raked gravel and elegantly arranged stones. Mizumi had apparently already claimed residency inside, sitting down in a chair with her back to the open yard as the assistant fidgeted in front of her. Ayika could not see Mizumi's face but there was clearly a lot of one-sided talking going on, to judge by Tian's uncertain vacillating movements. Ayika caught the word "tea" said in an Islander accent which seemed to allow the boy's disparate components enough collusion to successfully take him out of the room on this new mission.

Mizumi was still faced away from the garden but the instant the assistant had left the room she suddenly sprang up to her feet. She peered around, intently investigating the room's various furnishings as if looking for something. In any case she was distracted, Tian was distracted, and Ma'er was nowhere to be seen so Ayika seized her chance.

"All right, come on," she said, grabbing Xinfei's wrist as she pulled him through the gate.

Xinfei sputtered in a panicked whisper as he felt her tug at his arm. "What? No we..."

But his gangly frame gave way to her pressure and so they darted together across the open space of the garden, skirting the raked gravel field to hug the wall behind a small red-leafed tree. The whole distance was less than a street-width but by the time Ayika was safe around the corner of the house and hidden from those out-flung door-screens her heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder the whole building was not alerted. She looked to her left were Xinfei had ended up similarly plastered against the wall and could not help but give him a grin of exhilarated triumph. He looked at her like he wanted to scream that she was crazy but could not bring himself to make even a whisper. The silent glare of frantic disapproval he settled for only made Ayika grin wider.

Here in the eve-shadowed space between the house and the outer wall Ayika found the kitchen door that she had assumed would be there. Her previous stint in a hireling maid service had given her a general sense for how building layouts operated, namely the necessity of a straight path from the servants' section to the alley gate. She pressed her ear against the flaking paint of the kitchen door, waving a hand to deny Xinfei's silent gesticulated entreaties for them to make their escape. Inside, Ayika heard the rattling of someone messing with cookery or teapots, likely the assistant preparing the tea. Ayika held up her hand in a fist signaling a wait, which only provoked new silent protestations from Xinfei to the gist of them never having arranged or discussed a hand-signal system.

But then she heard another voice drifting from out the open front parlor, deep and forceful and definitely not Mizumi.

"Good day to you, Miss. I'm honored to entertain an appreciator of my humble arrangements."

Ayika recognized Ma'er's gravelly rumble instantly, and heard the assistant rush to vacate the kitchen to attend to his master. A shiver ran down her back as she remembered the "gardener's" looming presence when he came to threaten Professor Lizhen. However, all presumed occupants of the house were now accounted for in the front parlor so Ayika eased the back door open and crept up the steps into the kitchen itself. Xinfei reluctantly followed her into this man's home as conversation continued in the main salon.

She could hear Mizumi speaking in the other room. "Ah, Master Ma'er, how kind of you to see me. I was admiring your own exquisite work on this garden."

"A weak effort executed with paltry resources I assure you. You will take tea? There should be some being prepared...Tian? Good." At this Ayika froze in place, directly in front of the teapot, but it appeared the assistant was not returning to the kitchen just yet. Luckily this room did not open directly onto the salon and instead disgorged into a narrow hallway that bisected this floor so Ayika was able to peek a bit more into the rest of the house without being seen. The nearest door in that passageway opened into a small store room which revealed nothing criminal if Ma'er was not smuggling assorted cooking supplies and household goods.

The others were still talking in the parlor. "You are generous. Since I have intruded on your time I will be forced to accept a cup." This was followed by a gentle giggle that seemed out of character for the confident and forceful girl Ayika had met the previous day.

Ma'er replied with equally practiced formality. Ayika frowned as she closed the storeroom again; that speaking talent was odd for someone who lived in the Lower Ring. "It's my honor to provide. As I am quite honored that you appear to be acquainted with my work. How embarrassing it is that I must ask you to make your own introductions."

Ayika crept forward with silent footsteps. The next doorway down the hallway seemed to lead to a more private dining area, at present unused and unlit. She was already mostly inside the dining room when the corner of her eye caught a motion of shadows and Xinfei darted to hide with her just ahead of the the assistant entering the hallway on his back towards the kitchen. Getting out might be difficult. She tried not to look at Xinfei, whose eyes were saying the same thing with a lot more silent profanity.

There was a barely perceptible pause in Mizumi's speech, but she covered it well. "I suppose it is I who have been impolite. My apologies, and I am Mizumi Miohuito, daughter of Tetzamatl Miohuito. In fact it is for his love that I have come to you. My father's birthday is approaching and I am hoping to surprise him with a renovation to a small gardens of ours that has sadly fallen into neglect. I was provided your reference by an acquaintance."

"How filial are the girls of the Hundred Islands to prepare for their father's birthday so far in advance. Of course I would be honored to help." This gardener, a man with scarred cheeks and calloused knuckles, modulated his tone in expert and disquieting subtleties. Ayika paused. Had he just implied he knew when Mister Miohuito's birthday was? Who was Ma'er, really?

The dining room also proved empty of anything that might hint to why this man had been involved with Professor Lizhen. He really did seem like a moderately well-to-do gardener. She would have to search even more of the house, and at the same time ignore the panicked voice in her head calling herself an idiot over the thudding beat of blood in her veins.

Ayika was starting to agree that this excursion had been bad idea. She caught Xinfei's attention, who had come to that same conclusion long ago, and moved to exit from the dining room's second door. From what she could hear of the conversation in the salon, Ma'er was suspicious of Mizumi's sudden appearance and was probing for information. However, so far Mizumi had managed to deftly deflect every question with smooth and evasive prattling. The girl was clearly practiced in deception. Even so, Ayika was impressed that Mizumi showed no reaction whatsoever when Ayika stepped out the next doorway and found herself staring directly at where the foreigner was sitting on a couch with a tea cup in her hand.

Ayika had just accidentally entered into plain view of the main sitting room. The gardener and his assistant were both in their seats and had their backs to her. Ayika found herself paralyzed in total panic in as Mizumi also froze in the middle of sipping her tea. Mizumi swallowed, gave a slight widening of the eyes, a single blink, and a hint of imperceptible effort as she wrenched her gaze to continue a gentle perusing of her surroundings as if there was nothing particularly interesting to be seen. Even a close observer would not have thought that this illustrated dumbfounded flatfooted surprise.

Mizumi took a breath, hurriedly picking up the threads of her conversation. "What...I am looking for is, of course, a sort of a...small, secret spot where my father will not be reminded of the troubles of business. A garden of relaxation and contemplation." Neither Ma'er or his assistant had turned around to see her so Ayika frantically waved Xinfei forward, practically shoving him across this exposed corridor into the next room.

"Why...should we not all have a little place of peace. I am sure you agree, Master Ma'er?" Mizumi said with barely perceptible hesitance. Miraculously, the Fire Nation girl seemed to be covering for them so when her eyes' deliberately lazy orbit swung back by to the doorway Ayika made a stalling stretching hand signal and pointed up to indicate that they would search the second floor next if Mizumi could hold the inhabitants here. Then she darted out of the hallway to join Xinfei through the doorway. If Mizumi could continue to serve as a distraction then they could search the whole house for clues.

"Quick," Ayika whispered to Xinfei, her heart in her throat. "I think she's going to stall for us, though why she's here I..." Ayika shook the question out of her head. They did not have time for that. "We need to find the stairs up, quick." You could not always question good luck. Searching the room they were now in took seconds. It was the sparsely furnished sort of space of indecipherable purpose that wealthy people seemed to always have so many of. Then they were out the other door towards the staircase at the back of the house. The uninterrupted flow of conversation behind them indicated that Mizumi was doing her part.

Ayika's heart was beating like a hammer as she began to creep up the stairs with the stealth of a mouse. Then she caught herself just before she put her foot down in the middle of the first step. Fearing creaking planks she instead squeezed to the edge of the staircase and made her way up with Xinfei mimicking her motions behind. They were almost all the way to the top when one of them shifted their weight wrong and produced a wooden squeak that to Ayika's ears rang louder than a temple bell. In the silence that followed she swore that she managed to stop the flow of her own blood as she listened for sign of detection.

From the salon she clearly heard Mizumi's languidly buzzing voice. "I am having trouble visualizing the concepts you are so clearly describing. Perhaps you could take me up to your study so that I might see some of your designs? I would greatly appreciate your accommodation."

What? Why would she tell them to go upstairs when...Ayika really needed people to understand basic hand signals. No time for complete silence, people were standing up down below. She and Xinfei scampered up to the second floor desperate for somewhere to hide. The first door was no good, that room looked like the man's office that Mizumi was for some reason urging him towards. The next door looked more promising, opening as it did into a personal bedroom. Ayika raced inside and swung the door shut behind them as quietly and quickly as she could, one hand pulling on the knob and one pushing flat on the wood so that both controlled the motion. She froze, forehead almost to the door and eyes closed as she listened to the footsteps that would signal their inevitable capture and arrest. But that did not come. Instead she heard Ma'er and Mizumi make their way up the stairs into the office, followed by the uncertain tinkling of someone with trembling hands trying to carry a tea-set.

When she heard the muffled conversation resume in the office, Ayika finally allowed herself to breath and begin to register her surroundings. Xinfei was standing half-crouched in the middle of the bedroom as though afraid to touch a single thing. Ayika exhaled heavily. Well, they were already deep into this so they might as well do a thorough job of searching for evidence. Holding a finger to her lips for silence she gestured to Xinfei for him to examine this room and he in turn signed something about butterflies in the walls wanting to punch him. Perhaps discussing hand signals beforehand would have been a good idea.

Not that searching this room promised to be a daunting prospect. The furnishings were sparse and inelegant, almost barracks-like. There was a rigidly tucked bed large enough for one person, with small end tables on each side. The bed was set high enough off the ground that she could clearly see there was only a single rolled mat beneath it. Against the walls there were neatly filled bookshelves, two painted scrolls of a tree branch a mountain scene, a large dresser and a washbasin table. There was an infuriating lack not only of clues to the man's involvement in Professor Lizhen's death but of any indication that this was a man's private home instead of a room rented from an inn. Ayika was at the point of peering inside the water jug in frustrated desperation when she noticed Xinfei staring at the blank wall beside the dresser.

She slid over, tapped him on the arm and whispered in his ear. "Looking for the butterflies?"

He was confused. "What? Why would..." He shook his head as he looked again at the empty wall. "No, I, I just...shouldn't there be a window here? This is the corner of the house and I'm pretty sure I saw windows at each corner when we were down on the street."

Ayika could not remember, but the room did seem pretty large to only be intended to be lit through a single small window. She slid over to try to peer behind the dresser, and was wondering how she could move it without making a noise when she heard a click and an soft exclamation from Xinfei.

Xinfei was gone. In his place, part of the plain wooden wall had pivoted revealing a secret space behind. As she moved over, Ayika whispered, "How'd you do that? What's in-?"

Xinfei emerged from the narrow hidden room. He was as pale as a day-old corpse, "We've got get out of here."

"But what-"

"Now, Ayika. I mean it." He grabbed her arm, harder than she expected. His eyes were wide with fear, and his teeth were clenched together. That fear was contagious, but she had to see for herself. She gently pushed his hand to extract herself and peeked into the secret room. The small window to the outside had been papered over but still a glow was admitted that allowed her to see the faces hanging on the walls. Masks; with grimacing mouths, wild hair, pointed fangs in strange colors. They hung from their hooks between torn scraps of anti-Islander propaganda posters and maps of this section of the city. There were cross marks angrily dashed across several spots from the Harbor to the Middle Ring. In the dim light the empty wooden eyes looked like they met hers and the still air almost shimmered around them. In the corner there were some cloth strips spotted with dried blood and a box full of assorted vicious looking knives.

The hairs on the back of Ayika's neck were standing on end. But none of the masks were white with jutting tusks. None of them had been worn by the man in black who killed Lizhen. No, every one of these was different, a unique individual. She had never seen anything like them in Ba Sing Se.

"Ayika!" Xinfei pleaded in a quite unnecessary bid to make her think this discovery was serious. "We've got to go." He put his arm out in front of her to keep her out of the secret room. "I think this guy might be the Mask! Leader of the secret Society! If what they say on the street's true, he'll kill us in a heartbeat. We get out now."

As Ayika looked back into that ill-omened room she heard her own voice speaking in her head. Well, it said, you wanted to find something.

...


	12. Opportunity

...

"This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad," Xinfei muttered in an almost silent stream, conscious of the fact that they were currently crouched in the bedroom of a dangerous man who might be the leader of a violent secret society. A man who was a few meters away from them, currently talking about garden designs. "This guy is real! I thought you were just trying to make yourself feel better by pretending to investigate some...Ayika, this guy can kill benders!" He was clearly terrified.

Ayika tried to collect her thoughts. She whispered back, "Wait wait wait. I remember you telling me about a Society of the Mask yesterday when you were selling those matches. You said that they were some nationalists involved in the anti-Islander protests. And there was some rumor about normals having a special technique to fight benders?"

"There's a room full of masks and maps of the city with X's on them tacked up next to leaflets of nationalist propaganda! There were knives! That's a pretty firm rumor!"

"I know, I know. Just give me a chance to...think," she hissed. The guards at the school had mentioned the significance of Professor Lizhen's killer wearing a mask. Ayika didn't see that same white mask here in the secret room though. Ma'er could have hidden it since she'd seen him wearing it at the school. But why would he steal back what he had just given to Lizhen? Or maybe Ma'er was not the killer but Ma'er and the murderer might both be members of this secret society? That linked them! Although, the white faced figure in the black room, somehow he hadn't felt like just a man in a mask. Without thinking about it Ayika gently felt her sternum where the blow had struck her.

But rumor and confused memories were not enough to bring justice for Professor Lizhen. She asked Xinfei, "How do you know those are masks from that Society of the Mask? Would the guards recognize them as evidence if we brought one out?"

"Why build a secret room for your festival costumes?!" Xinfei said, halfway into a quiet panic. "We already know this guy was connected to your Lizhen right before the murder. Masks, knives, murder; it's not a lot of dots to connect!"

He rubbed his hand across his forehead. "You haven't heard what I have down at the docks. Some guy in a mask is supposedly the real force behind those stupid protesters against the Fire Nation and all those who support them. It's more than protests, there's real danger and anyone who looks too closely into his men ends up dead! Those university brats with the posters are one thing, but people are afraid of the Mask! People are dead! And you have us sneaking through his...Ayika no!" He grabbed her arm as she made to open the secret room again. "Please, we have to get out of here." He begged, sticking out his hand to seal the room with a click.

Leaving now felt like running, like admitting her own powerlessness again. But as much as Ayika could not stand it Xinfei had a point. The strange windfall of Mizumi's cooperation could only last so long and they had achieved more than she had honestly expected. Discretion could trump valor for now until she could come up with a plan to use their advantage. With one last look longing to pluck forth the masks and seek instant justice, she nodded.

The descent was as heart-stopping as their way up. She prayed to the bedroom door to open silently, then timed their passage down the hallway with an upswing in office conversation, knowing at any minute the mysterious Ma'er or his skittish assistant Tian could step out and discover them. Ayika swore she passed through the veil of death several times before they got downstairs to the kitchen and were free to dash back across the garden. Only once back in the alley did they feel free to indulge in the panicked gasps their pounding blood demanded. Xinfei insisted that they get back to the Bed immediately, looking over his shoulder for cultists or Public Safety agents as he did so, but Ayika knew she had to wait for Mizumi. She had to know what role that girl had in all this.

They did not have long to wait, though it felt like an eternity as Xinfei continued to tell her about stories of shops smashed up in the night, imported machines destroyed, and people who supported the Islanders being found beaten or worse by a man in a mask. The Masks were something new in the constant turmoil of this city's back-alley politics but they were dangerous. Eventually the green door opened and the foreign girl was guided out while Tian stammered pleasantries. Mizumi seemed preoccupied and replied sparsely to each of the thanks and entreaties to return. She received the assistant's final bow with a nod of her head and seated herself in her palanquin. She only gave a slight start with a strangled squeak when she saw Ayika and Xinfei lurking in the crowd of the street traffic, which Ayika again thought was a fairly good example of a controlled reaction. Mizumi gave her final wave to Tian while wearing a frozen smile but he once again appeared too preoccupied in his own worries to notice hers. When Ayika heard the green gate slam shut she rushed forward into the street but as soon as she got next to the palanquin Mizumi called for the bearers to hoist it up.

She hissed at Ayika. "Follow now! Talk later!"

Ayika let the chair move away as she stood there in the middle of the street. She could admit that it might indeed be wise to be a little less public about this discussion. Fortunately, it wouldn't be any trouble to trail behind at the speeds such a chair could manage through these crowded Lower Ring streets. Trying to act casually, she waved Xinfei out to her and turned for one last look at the gardener's house. The house of the leader of the Society of the Mask. A man who had somehow signed Lizhen's death warrant. There was a figure in the second floor window looking out in their general direction, but she and Xinfei were camouflaged by the rest of the milling street-folk. Still, she walked a bit more quickly than usual as they set off after Mizumi.

They caught up to the sedan chair by the first square but Mizumi met Ayika's eye from her seat and waved them off so Ayika and Xinfei trailed behind at the infuriatingly slow pace the porters could mange in this constant flow of foot-traffic. Mizumi finally had her chair set down at the edge of the large square by the gate-side Transport Terminal, right where the open paved space was sliced in half by the great city wall's emerging afternoon shadow. Ayika's frustration with Mizumi's refusal to speak to her had been growing for the entire walk, and as she was forced to watch the girl casually and oh-so-slowly pay the chair bearers she felt ready to explode with questions. She crossed that line of shadow from sun into shade with righteous indignation on her side but before she could open her mouth she was beaten to the punch.

"What were you two doing there?!" Mizumi yelled, suddenly much closer than Ayika really felt comfortable with. The Islander threw up her hands as she continued. "I mean to say, what...?! Do you realize what could have happened?!"

That tone of accusation, even in amusingly mispronounced words, was much too accusatory and Ayika abruptly stopped caring about drawing stares from the milling people around them. She yelled back, "What was _I_ doing there?! What were _you_ doing there?! And why'd you lead them upstairs to where we were searching when I asked you to help me?!"

Mizumi's eyes boggled. "You went upstairs? Why were...? I was trying to draw them away from you so that you could sneak out!"

"Well...all right then! That makes more sense!" Ayika finished lamely. Both of them deflated slightly, realizing there was not really a reason to be yelling that loudly. Mizumi was still standing very close to her.

"Girls, we might want to..." Xinfei began until Ayika cut him off with a hand. She was not done with anger quite yet.

She held eye contact with the Islander girl. "Still, what were you doing there at all?"

Mizumi held her palms open like it was obvious. "I was investigating the man you told me about last night! The one who had been visiting Teacher Lizhen when you found me in the adjacent room. My father still has your government looking closely at him despite what Trade Representative Tailang could do." Now her voice lowered in remembered fury. "The so-called authorities of law do not know who did the crime so they plan to satisfy their superiors by accusing the Fire Nation man. If they had another suspect they would be able to admit they have nothing on Father." She was angry, but she also looked worried and frustrated at her helplessness before a world which had capriciously decided to be cruel to her and her loved ones. Ayika could understand feeling the need to take action.

Ayika made a decision. It was possible that it was unwise but at this point she had little to lose. She needed help. "Well, you may be in luck," she began. "We discovered that the so called gardener Ma'er is actually..." Here she was interrupted by Xinfei dramatically fake-coughing with significant looks towards Mizumi. He clearly did not want to let Mizumi in on their findings. Ayika elected to ignore him. "Is actually part of the Society of the Mask!"

This did not elicit the reaction she expected, that being any reaction at all. Mizumi stared blankly waiting for more. After a moment she said, "I am sorry, am I supposed to know what that is?"

"What? But it's in all the rumors! All around the city! It's the...Actually yeah, Xinfei, I'm not completely clear what this society is either," Ayika abruptly admitted. There had been a lot of information in the last two days and in her mind it was becoming jumbled into one massive and indistinct conspiracy. "Yesterday I thought you said the Mask was fighting the Public Safety benders, but then there was that anti-foreigner stuff at Ma'er's place?"

Xinfei sighed, having by now resigned himself to the fact that no one seemed to be listening to them discuses highly dangerous subjects in the middle of a crowded public square, and that neither of the women in front of him seemed likely to stop soon. Releasing his pervasive suspicions was a great effort for Xinfei; he had a mind that made its own excitement out of his routine life. In addition, he clearly did not know why Ayika seemed to be trusting this Fire Nation girl he had never before said a single word to. So he turned to Mizumi herself.

"I'm sorry," he began and he might conceivably have actually meant that as an apology. "I'm sure you may be a good person. But I don't know you. You can currently hold witnessing us breaking into a citizen's house over our heads. In this power imbalance I don't know why we should be trusting you just because you showed up here today."

Ayika looked sharply at him. "Xinfei!"

"No," Mizumi said, her accent adding a few extra vowels to that simple word. "I understand that you would have caution. You do not know why I would help in this. Why I would feel so strongly about Teacher Lizhen." She looked down and as she spoke her hands clenched and unclenched into fists. "I...Before my father moved me here to the Kingdoms, I often did not see him for months. My grandfather looked after me and he was a soldier in the war. I suppose that I alway imagined that if I got the opportunity, I would be brave like him. But then last night I heard something odd in the night and I only hid. And a man who was one of the greatest friends to my people died a few meters away from me while this Water Tribe girl tried to defend him. I suppose...I suppose I just want second chance to be brave."

Ayika looked at Mizumi with new wonder and saw fierceness burning in her eyes. She turned to Xinfei and tried convey that to her friend, This was someone who understood why she needed to find answers for Professor Lizhen. "Well, I think that's a good enough answer." She raised her eyebrow at Xinfei.

With a hunt of a glum smile he seemed to get Ayika's meaning. He shuffled uncomfortably, but reluctantly consented and began to lay out his thoughts about the Masks. "Look, about the Mask Society, I've pretty much only heard about this stuff working at the docks..."

"You've missed half your days there for the last two weeks. Xiaobao said."

"Not the time, Ayika." He nervously ran his fingers through his hair and tried to gather together half-remembered gossip. "Ok, there's been a lot of anti-foreigner noise lately, and not just from the university boys putting up their posters and yelling at people on the street. Some are saying that the king's ministers are in the Exclusion's pocket and they are selling us out to the ashy dogs. No offense," he said to Mizumi who looked more amused than offended by this slur.

Xinfei caught hold of his train of thought and continued. "The Mask is who they start muttering about when they say 'somebody ought to do something about that'. The society is the elite arm of the conservatives who are fighting to limit the incursions of the Islanders; smashing businesses, terrorizing collaborators and all that. This puts them at odds with the parts of the government who get heavy pockets from the foreigners." Then he added a modulating half-shrug of uncertainty. "So they say. In one of the clashes recently rumor has it supposedly a Public Safety earthbender ended up dead." He poked his finger into his palm dramatically. "Anyone who can do that is not to be messed with."

"Great!" Ayika said, thumping her fist in her palm. Xinfei raised an eyebrow at her and she corrected, "I mean the information not the dead guy. The government will love to connect Professor's murder to an antigovernment group. Ma'er will be down in Public Safety's secret tunnels ten minutes after they find out!"

Mizumi interrupted. "Hold on, please. I have not heard of any of this mask affairs from my father's importer and industrialist friends, and they talk about politics issues and their fight against the conservatives at every occasion. Why have I never heard of this The Mask?"

Xinfei acquired a quietly manic gleam in his eye. "Of course it is being kept quiet. Public Safety would never admit the existence of a group they can't stop. That is if they're actually two different groups." He glanced around again for eavesdroppers. "This could all be a conspiracy from the old Public-Safety-still-actually-the-Dai-Li themselves just _pretending_ to be the Mask. See, what you have to know is that a false-flag operation is when you think that-"

Ayika shoved a hand across his mouth. "And this is about where I've learned to cut him off." Mizumi laughed a bit over her own confusion and Ayika grinned. "Ok," She said, raising her finger that was not currently pressed against Xinfei's face. "The guards think the Mask might be involved in Professor's death, but Public Safety wont let them mention that because it embarrasses them. That Inspector Yang guy would rather just blame Mizumi's father because they've been getting yelled at for not being hard enough on Islanders, and if he mentions the Mask then he'll get in trouble for not knowing enough about a secret group that's causing trouble."

Mizumi was nodding along while Xinfei scowled slightly and looked like he wanted to say something. Even with a hand no longer clamped over his mouth he looked irritated. Ayika continued, "So just telling them about Ma'er's secret room full of masks, oh by the way Mizumi we found a secret room full of masks, might not be enough to get them to do anything about this so-called gardener."

Mizumi nodded, quickly getting into the flow of things. "Yes, we would need to give them much more information, clearly showing that the Mask would target Professor Lizhen for his moderate views. Then gardener Ma'er's threatening visit to the professor the day of his death will replace all suspicion of my father." She turned to Xinfei. "You said the Mask represents the radical wing of the protester groups. Perhaps we could infiltrate one of the more visible conservative groups find out more from them about the Mask's activities. The radicals have to have some sort contact with their foot-soldiers."

"I like how you think," Ayika said grinning. Mizumi nodded coyly, spreading her hands to accept the praise. Ayika continued, "And I've already got an idea. There were those protest poster University boys who were flirting with me down at the harbor a few days ago. They're out there nearly every day looking for trouble."

"Wait, who was flirting-?"

"Not the time, Xinfei. I think I've seen those three boys enough to figure they're are organizing the anti-import propaganda in Kuang Harbor."

"Yes!" said Mizumi, excitedly. "We can pose as agitators and find out everything they might know about the Mask. Or at least get more leads from them."

" _You_ are going to pose as an anti-Islander?" Xinfei interrupted, staring at Mizumi. He vaguely gestured up and down her body. "And how exactly is that that going to work?" Ayika had to admit that he had a point.

"Why, I will just say that I am from the old colonies, or as they say the Republic, and act really angry. Half of those people are actually from the Nation of course." Mizumi said as if this was a very obvious answer.

"And that'll work with your accent?" He asked sarcastically.

She shook her head to dismiss his concern. "I sound close enough to half of the Republic people I have heard. I am from the eastern Islands anyway, it is not as if I have the _Shuto_ , I mean Jingdu accent."

"Yeah, come on," Ayika broke in. "Those student protester types are always recruiting more people to 'the cause'. They'll let us in like _that_." She snapped her fingers.

...

"Well, we can't just let you in like that."

Ayika and her companions stood outside a small teashop like many that filled the old quarter of the harbor town near Temple Street. The folding shutters of the front wall were thrown open to expose the main room to the street traffic that ambled by. On one side of the shop two grey-haired men sat across from each other over a table of game tiles while the server boy sat on a bench nearby as he leaned against the wall and absently watched the old-timers fiercely click down each move. The boy also spared the occasional glance at the opposite corner of the little room where another group of customers had set up camp. This was the unofficial planning headquarters of the Poster and Publications Voluntary Subchapter of the Loyalist Movement for the Expulsion of Foreign Influence. There were three members and in Xinfei's opinion not a lick of sense between the lot.

"Oh, I'm sure you're just being modest." Ayika continued to gently press their leader for information.

Apparently, these would-be university boy rabble rousers had in the past tried to "recruit" Ayika a few times as she walked by their various stations. Despite Xinfei's quite reasonable questions Ayika just smirked and refused to elaborate what "recruit" entailed. He was pretty sure she was just teasing him.

The three young men were all dressed in the black and white uniforms of Royal University students and had sprawled their block character posters and innumerable pamphlets across two tables. The one in front of the group had introduced himself with a sickeningly charming smile as Zhangyi, student at the Royal University and first amongst equals amongst this particular patriotic cadre. He had managed to not notice Xinfei involuntarily rolling his eyes as the self-professed leader bowed to the two girls with exaggerated mock courtly manners. His big lunk of a friend with his wispy attempt at a beard, Chonglong, had his arms crossed in a show of affront at all of the applicants but Mizumi in particular, while the third looked up briefly from a small red volume entitled _Freedom and Pride_. They did not look like a promising lead to a secret society of powerful and influential shadow warriors. Xinfei glanced down; the shopkeep had their tin teacups chained to the table.

Ayika continued asking after this Zhangyi, searching for anything more than his rote exhortations to support native culture at the expense of creeping foreign influence. "Anyone who talks as well as you would have to be the main speaker at all your secret meetings. I just wish I could speak like you! You know I got fired from my job today because I was late after those Islander invaders shut down all of Temple Street for the funeral procession of their ambassador? What country is this?!"

Xinfei assumed that by now Ayika had to want to kick someone, the prime target likely being this lead figure of these university student agitators who were proving to be unhelpfully intransigent. But she just kept smiling. There was no way she could be genuinely taken in by this want-to-be revolutionary with his dark black hair and bright green eyes, right? Xinfei just wished Ayika did not seem so eager to include this foreigner Mizumi in her mad personal quest. He'd mentioned that she automatically made them look suspicious but Mizumi had insisted and Ayika consented. And now he had to watch Ayika flirt with these idiotic toffs. A man could only deal with so much and after last night's encounter with the guards his ribs still hurt when he moved.

Mizumi, now supposedly a girl from the United Republic named Mei, was getting suspicious looks from the boys for her foreign features but she still broke in to the conversation. "And what do the guards do about all this foreign interference? Nothing! Of course when every official from the port to the upper ring is taking bribes from Fire Nation merchants it is not surprising that the ambassador of the Fire Lord gets more respect than ordinary citizens of this city. Damn Fire Nation pigs, I hope those dirty rotten-"

What followed was an astonishingly blistering stream of racially-charged and highly political profanity which left her audience blinking and blushing but no longer suspicious of her loyalties. Ayika stared wide eyed at Mizumi and for the first time Xinfei had to concur. Distantly he wondered what it took to for an Islander to land themselves with treason charges from their own government.

Chonglong slammed one of his oversized fists down on the table in agreement; apparently a creatively dirty mouth was a swift way to his heart. "This half-blood has got that right! The Fire Nation is basically conquering us like it did the Lost Territories. Sorry, the _United Republic_." He corrected, thick with bitter sarcasm. "And yet when we want to get everyone in the organization here to go mess up that barbarian death ritual yesterday, all those so called Initiates at the meeting shut us down! 'The funeral rites must not be disrupted', what is that?! It's so like the old 'diplomatic' way of doing things it's as if our leadership never changed."

Zhangyi shot his friend a serious look that included a lot of silent synonyms for shut up. "Hey, calm down. We don't know everything that was going on. I mean the last meeting did not exactly finish in the normal way, there could have been a different plan in the works that had to be scrapped after...you know. Anyway, we've been given a task today and I don't think I need to remind you that we have not exactly made great progress towards it."

Ayika caught hold of this hint and clearly hoped to use it as a crowbar. "Oh, a task? What new task did you get after last night, er, today?

Mizumi leaned in against the table too, but missed some of the points of subtlety in her pursuit of a lead. "Does it have something to do with word of the killing of teacher Chen Lizhen last night? I heard he was an outspoken opponent of the cause."

Across the cluttered table, pudgy Jiang dropped his book. Up till now he had been eyeing Mizumi as if trying to remember what a United Republic accent would actually sound like but now he was simply shocked. "Professor Lizhen was killed?"

Ayika turned to meet his eyes, wide above newly pale cheeks. Jiang seemed genuinely surprised and distraught. "Yeah, last night, in the school where he was teaching. Public Safety says they're investigating it. You've heard of him?"

"Yes, I mean I took one of his classes at the University before he was kicked...he's dead?" Jiang shook his head, wiping a bit of sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. "Lizhen was way too enraptured with the mysticism of the foreign cultures he studied but he was smart and a great teacher. I mean, I guess not smart enough to not get sucked in by the pro-Fire shills but...What happened to him?"

Ayika noticed the suddenly guarded reactions of the other University boys as well as Mizumi's disguised but still visible discomfort at the possibility of the accusations against her father being brought into discussion. As a result Ayika decided to play it cagy. "I don't know. I, er, we just work as maids at the Legacy School near Dazhan square where he worked. I don't really know the details." She shrugged her shoulders.

Chonglong was clearly less interested than his fellow in hearing of Lizhen's fate. It was unlikely he had payed enough attention in his classes at the university to remember his professors. Instead, he jabbed his finger at Xinfei. "What about you, boy? You a maid up there too?" There was a faint smirk above his stupid wispy beard.

Xinfei narrowed his eyes slightly, "No, no I'm not. I work down at the docks." Well, he could show Ayika and that foreign girl that he could play a role as well. Ha! Fed up with foreigners, that would be a very hard part to play. "I'm with the longshoremen off-loading merchandise for the Gaoli family. And what do you know, it's all foreign made stuff! I'm sure you've heard that big merchant man talking about us citizens improving our own nation, what with his stupid gas-lamp project up in the Middle Ring and all that. But when I go to lock up his warehouse at night do I see any of this so called domestic innovation in his merchandise? No, just more Fire Nation crap!"

Something he said resonated with the leading student Zhangyi. "Wait, you lock up the Gaoli warehouse each night?"

Well, I locked it up one night when Xiaobao and everyone else were miserable with the flu, Xinfei thought. "Of course I do." he said. No need to explain my life story to these guys.

Zhangyi and Chonglong shared looks. The leader elected to speak, "That task we were talking about earlier? I actually made it sound a little more mysterious than it really is. You see, we have meetings at night where the different patriotic cells can get together to coordinate their activities. There's one scheduled for tonight and I would love to invite you three, however we had a bit of trouble with our old meeting place two nights ago."

Chonglong snorted heavily, "A _little_ trouble?"

Zhangyi gave him another hard look before returning his smooth elocution to Xinfei. "Like I said, we are looking for a new temporary meeting space, just for one night. They said a harbor warehouse should be big enough and out of the way enough to fit the bill perfectly. What do you say? Could you open it up for us tonight?"

Before Xinfei could open his mouth Ayika jumped in. "Of course he can! Anything to help the brave people safeguarding out city. Maybe I could make my request to join your group to one of these Initiated themselves!"

"Maybe." Zhanyi said diplomatically with a smile, though Xinfei thought he might not like her talking about people higher on the ladder than him. "You will certainly get to hear more about our cause. You and your friend from the Occupied Territories are welcome to come. Just be ready to open the warehouse by moonrise."

Zhangyi spoke like he was ending a formal meeting but from behind him Jinag had something to say. He addressed Mizumi, "Professor Lizhen...Do they know who killed him?"

Mizumi met his eyes and softly shrugged, "The agents of the Public Safety Ministry did not know. As I saw they were only trying to pin the crime on someone quickly."

Jinag grumbled deeply in his throat, "Of course they were. Benders." That last word came out like a slur. "No effective mechanism for them to be brought to justice."

Ayika grabbed Mizumi's shoulders as she met eyes with Xinfei and gestured with her eyebrows that they should be off. "Thank you so much for helping open my eyes," She said to Zhangyi. "We'll see you at the meeting tonight! The warehouse will be open!" Then the three of them were off down the street leaving the student protesters to paint their big black characters on big white signs.

As soon as they turned a corner Xinfei grabbed Ayika's arm. "What was that, promising the warehouse? You know that I don't actually lock up! I don't have the keys."

Ayika shook herself free. "Yeah, but your brother does. Come on Xinfei, you heard them! There is some group called the Initiated who shows up at these meetings and gives orders. One of them could be the Mask! We'll be able to go confirm that it's Ma'er. And then we can slip word of the next meeting to the guards!"

Mizumi came up behind them. "I am not sure I am following your thoughts. Are we going to be able to deliver a meeting place as we promised or not? I am not convinced those boys are masterminds."

Ayika waved a dismissive hand, "No, but their bosses might be. All that garbage about eliminating foreign influence is just the stuff Professor Lizhen was preaching against. They've got to be pretty happy that he's gone, and they were probably behind it."

Mizumi did not look so confident in that interpretation. "The heavy boy seemed very upset. But still, it is a fitting plan. Aizhang Gaoli is my father's importer partner for our machines so I almost have a legal right to be there!"

Xinfei had heard enough, even as he blinked at finding out about Mizumi's indirect relationship to his employer. "Yeah, I doubt these fools could do anything themselves, but our bigger worry right now's getting Maolin on board. He's not usually cooperative with these 'little brother schemes' as he so respectfully calls them."

Ayika came in between the two of them and placed her hands in the middle of their backs to push them forward. She gave a sly grin that worried Xinfei from long experience. "Well, this time it's an Ayika scheme, and I have a few ways to get him to fall in line."

...


	13. Canals

...

The Kuang River docks were a cacophonous maelstrom of humanity. Even before Mizumi and the others got within a block of the warehouses themselves, the streets and bridges were full with a constant press of porters and overloaded carts. The two friends who had grown up in this mercantile jungle swam through the surge like fish in the sea but Mizumi was confounded. She tried to hold on to the back of Ayika's dress but soon the Water Tribe girl executed some flowing dodge around an overladen wheelbarrow and Mizumi was lost, alone in the crowd. Her father was an importer, she knew ports, and she now lived in the Exclusion itself right in the middle of Kuang Harbor but the traffic of the Impenetrable City was still beyond belief. For a people so obsessed with rules and regulation and stratification, here among the canals there was no sign of law or even human decency.

A heavy bump to her side pushed Mizumi against the stone railing of one of the innumerable bridges over the town's lace of canals. She tried to press in between two waist-high posts to prevent being scraped against a passing cart or pushed down into the water below. Not that she would hit the water if she fell, for the space beneath the bridge appeared to just be another road almost as crowded as the one above, though it was paved with water instead of brick. The canal was filled with long, thin, comically overloaded boats poled by workers who called out incessantly into the clamorous din.

Mizumi was staring over the flow of water traffic with a vacant and tired expression when a hand suddenly seized her wrist. Instantly the dull throb of the day's stress transformed into a surge of adrenaline and the combat lessons her grandfather had given came flooding back as she turned on her heel and clutched her free hand into a fist. She spun as she leveraged the force from her hip but luckily she managed to stop before her jab impacted Ayika's face.

The tribal girl blinked at the sudden attack. "Woah. Good reflexes I guess."

Mizumi was flush with embarrassment. She whipped her fist away from where it had frozen in front of Ayika's nose. "No, no, I am sorry! I just-"

"Forget it," the other girl said with a smile, brushing off the concern. "Come on, this way. Don't be freaked out. I'll give you a personal guided tour." She grabbed Mizumi's hand tightly. "Don't let go."

Together the girls made their way through the press, finding a way to the landward rear of one of the dock warehouses. Xinfei was grumpily waiting for them. He addressed Ayika as soon as they approached. "He's not going to be happy about all this." Presumably he was talking about his brother on whom their plan with the Student Nationalists seemingly hinged.

"Relax. I'll make him understand." With that Ayika led the way through damp, dirty alleys between dockside buildings out to the set of ship berths where Xiaobao worked. Xinfei's brother's name was not actually Xiaobao, Ayika explained to Mizumi, but working on the docks was a family tradition for the Bao family and when young Maolin Bao first came to work as a longshoreman he was distinguished as the smallest of a set. The nickname quickly became ironic as hard work and growth spurts turned the gentle and quiet boy into a towering young man who could carry two people on his broad shoulders. No one thought the fact that Xinfei was his younger and thinner brother presented anyone enough confusion to undo such an appropriate appellation. As Ayika told this story was told Xinfei was grumbling again and Mizumi could not help giggling. Ayika smiled.

The Gaoli Import company was, on this day, currently confining its activities to a single berth half-way along the port side bank from the rebirth of the River Reformed. Deeply tanned men in small, sweat-stained vests were involved in the heavy work of disgorging the contents of a long wooden ship of Earth Kingdom design, now slumbering in its berth with bamboo ribbed sails furled against the masts on each side of a thin smokestack. The engine was cool and the paddle wheel lay silent and still in contrast to the flurry of human motion. Giant bales of something white and fibrous were piled up on the dockside, in the process of being hauled away by porters on wheelbarrow or lashed to their back. The longshoremen themselves had moved onto the task of transporting wooden crates lifted carefully out of the ship's hold and over the sloping gunwales with an unholily complex system of ropes and pulleys hung from many spars. An older man with a scar under his lip, dressed the same as the rest but with a woven conical hat, stood apart from the laboring workers and barked out rhythmic instructions to the men whose straining muscles lowered the crate slowly onto the stones of the pier.

During a brief lull in the action Ayika waved her arms and called out, "Xiaobao!"

A young man, the tallest of all the workers, looked up and gave a smile that then faltered and was followed with what looked from this distance to be a stream of quiet curses. He yelled out to his foreman, "Hey, Jun Do! I've got to take care of something for a second! Ok?!"

The work boss tugged the edge of his hat down a bit to better shield his eyes and peered at where Ayika and Mizumi were standing as he yelled back in response. "Is that Xinfei? Yeah Xiao, go ahead and take care of that! Lasu! Grab his line!"

Xiaobao jumped down from his position and made his way up the pier through the piles of cargo already unloaded. Xinfei smiled weakly and waved but his older brother was having none of this. "You're supposed to be in bed." He said. "You've already missed two days this week and while Jun Do has sympathy for anyone who gets nabbed by the guards he doesn't have much for someone who refuses to simply sit down and heal. What did mom say? Ayika, what's he doing out?"

This close Xiaobao looked even taller and broader than Mizumi had thought he was before. However, unlike many of the other dock workers who were giving her and her foreign dress openly inspecting stares varying from hostility to hunger this young man barely spared her a glance.

Xinfei wrinkled his bruised face in agitation at being denied his own agency. "Yes, I'm actually feeling better. Thanks for asking, bro."

"Shut up, you look like a raccoon-bear with that black eye. Ayika, you told mom that he should spend a day or two resting."

"Hey, I told him too. However, I didn't have enough line on me to tie him to the bed so there wasn't much I could do when he insisted on following me around the city all day."

"Around the city...?" Xiaoboa started. "Ayika, what were you doing? And why does it involve an Islander-looking girl in fancy duds?"

Ayika gave him a reassuring smile that Mizumi felt made no impact on its intended target. She got the sense these two had known each other for most of their lives. "Relax man, I was just, you know, looking up on something that might give the guards a hint on catching who...attacked Professor Lizhen." As she reached the last part of her description her smile slipped and Mizumi saw the weariness and fear that must have always been there since last night. Mizumi found herself feeling guilty about her own level of emotional attachment to their search. Yes, she wanted to help push the unjust suspicion off her father but she had only known Teacher Lizhen for one day. Ayika had known the man for years and Xinfei had already paid for the city guard's incompetence in blood and bruises.

Xiaobao groaned and smacked his forehead. "Damn it, you can't go playing investigation outside the Bed. Not now. The whole city's on edge since that Ambassador died. The guys on the docks have been saying stuff all day. Stuff like, supposedly the spirits are angry about foreign ceremonies being held here and now all the spooks were out creeping last night. Possessions and magic and all that."

There was a snort from Xinfei. "That's ridiculous."

His brother rolled his eyes, "Look, I'm not saying I believe it or not, but you know as well as I do that what gets said on the docks is city-wide rumor in a few days. And people are antsy. People are starting to want ghost charms but at the same time they don't trust the government priests. I guess they think they're in the Fire Nation's pocket. Two of the guys just over at at Dahai Shipping supposedly went to see that Mama Mua on Flowing Water street and got so spooked at what she told them they never came back to work. Not the best climate to start buddying up with Islanders."

Mizumi spoke up, as this suspicion was wearing on her. "Neither I nor my family have done anything worthy of this caution."

Maolin called Xiaobao met her eyes. "I'm sure not, Miss, but I've got to look out for my family."

"Hey," Ayika insisted. "Just because some folks got spooked by a fortune teller I'm not about to give up on helping Lizhen! My grandma always said that people will find someway to scare themselves no matter what you tell them so what does it matter now?"

Xiaobao crossed his arms, "Yeah, well right around now I wish we still had your grandmother. These people are wanting that spirit magic help and I'm starting to think it couldn't hurt."

"Well, Lizhen wasn't killed by some spirit! It was a murderer!"

"Yes! And we have uncovered a promising lead on finding them!" Mizumi interjected.

Ayika looked at her, slightly thrown off by having her arguing rhythm disrupted. Mizumi shrugged, "It did not sound like you were getting around to describing the plan we decided on."

Xinfei softly groaned to himself as his brother turned a very skeptical eye on Mizumi who despite the exponential weight difference stared up to meet eyes with confident assurance. He kept his gaze on Mizumi but he addressed his brother. "Yeah. Xinfei, how about you start explaining more exactly what you're up to here?"

Ayika started speaking before her friend could open his mouth. She began introductions, "Xiaobao, this is..."

"My name is Mizumi Miohuito," she interrupted. She had spend enough time on the sidelines of the conversation here and her general experience in this country had shortened her patience for being discussed as if she was not present.

Luckily, this brother did not seem to be one of those who held distrust and disdain for her entire race. What he did appear to have was a profound skepticism for any plan cooked up between his brother and Ayika. An explanation of the potential gains from observing a meeting of the student protesters did not convince him. "Nope, nope, nope." he waved his hands. "This is a bad idea even if you weren't bringing a rich Islander girl into the middle of it. I can't have you guys putting yourselves in danger like that."

Xinfei snorted, "Danger? Those idiot university boys just read books and write posters. I agree that we probably won't find out anything good but it's not going to be dangerous. And it might be a laugh."

There was a frustration building up behind Ayika's eyes. "Look," she said, trying to keep the welling emotion out of her voice. "He was killed right in front of me and no one but us has any leads. I need to...Where do you see any justice in this city? You know what the government's investigation into a death looks like."

Something about what she said caused a reaction in both brothers, the younger's eyes got wide in surprise and the eldest narrowed in what could be anger or sadness, Mizumi did not know. Ayika's voice broke a little. "I mean, I just...I just want to try something. The professor was just trying to say we should all get along and learn from each other. And now they've made it about politics instead of truth. They killed him and I was right there."

For a moment the four of them stood in what passed for silence here in the busy harbor of the largest city in the world. Mizumi tried not to fidget, but she felt like she was missing some crucial background information about this conversation. Finally, Xiaobao sighed and uncrossed his muscular forearms. "Fine." Ayika's head snapped up in excitement and gratitude but he held up a hand to forestal response. "But the warehouse keys stay with me. If you guys are doing this, I'm coming with."

His younger brother rubbed his spiky hair discontentedly. "Hey look, I can handle-"

"Shut up Xinfei," Ayika said without malice as she shoved him to the side. "Thank you, Maolin. Thank you so much." She turned to Mizumi and met her eyes with broadcasted excitement. "We're on!"

Mizumi jerked to attention. "We are? This is great!" She said as she pumped her arm in the air. Her celebration brought new stares from the rest of the traffic around the docks. She looked down at herself and decided that a little less attention might be preferable. But they still had to organize their plan of action.

"All right, I should really get on some more local clothes for this mission. But before that, on to planning." She began to pace as she rattled off what they needed to arrange. "That warehouse over there with the Gaoli seal is the correct one or is there another that we will be using? All of you three live in the former Kuang riverbed neighborhood which is just as far from this warehouse as the Exclusion is so our travel times should be the same. The university students said that the meeting would start just after moonrise which tonight is I believe is two hours after sunset, so we should try to meet just after an hour past sunset. Do you have the sand glasses to mark that? It does not really matter though, that level of coordination is unnecessary as long as we meet up here before the protesters arrive."

The three other co-conspirators were blinking at this rapid speech as Mizumi paced back and forth listing out points on her fingers. Clearly they had not expected this rich merchant's daughter to start talking like she was planning a military campaign. Now she rushed forward and took Ayika's hands in hers, clutching them in honest thanks that left Ayika looking flustered and confused. "Thank you so much for allowing me to help. The conservatives are always eager to blame everything on my father and the others of the Exclusion. To think that they would actually try to pin the murder of our supporter on us is...Well, we will get them. Oh yes, we will. Thank you, Ayika of the Water Tribe." There was a fierce gleam in her eye as she turned and jogged off down the crowded pier, turning to wave goodby as she promised to be back at the agreed time.

Ayika blinked in a poleaxed way as she waved to Mizumi who was now getting back to her feet after tripping over a bale of cotton she had not seen while jogging backwards. Xiaobao stepped up next to Ayika. "She has energy," he said.

"Yeah, she's really something," was all she could say. It had been a long time since she'd had any female friends. It was nice. This Islander girl was rich and presumptuous and fierce but she was smart and quick to improvise and did not seem to harbor any bad feeling for Ayika's race or class that was not part of the foreigner's generalized pity for this whole country. Could Ayika trust her? She didn't know, but it would be interesting to find out.

Xinfei was a little less impressed. "Yeah, she's something. But what do you actually know about her? Didn't she just join your school yesterday? And didn't you catch her sneaking around the building listening in on the professor right before this all happened? Are we sure we want to trust her?"

Ayika waved away these concerns. "She didn't do anything. She only wants...I just know, ok?"

Xinfei still looked skeptical but he nodded, accepting that point for the sake of debate. "Ok, sure. She's clean. Maybe. But we don't have to necessarily buy into her whole 'clear daddy's name' plan."

"What are you talking about?"

Xinfei moved to explain. "Look, her dad was caught lurking in the dark outside the school when the killer came right? And that name Miohuito, he's the one building that coal powered metal tram system he plans to put the earthbenders out of work. I know you've heard some of the bad rumors about all that. He wasn't exactly beyond suspicion even before he became the suspect in a murder. If the Islanders can control the tram lines they can control movement in this city so no one can act against them."

Ayika had heard people talking about that before. "Pshh, rumors. The conservatives just don't like any Fire Nation businesses operating in the city."

Xinfei did not take being dismissed that easily. "Hey! Just because the protesters are jerks doesn't mean they can't be right sometimes! And the Miohuitos aren't magically innocent because you had fun today being gal pals with that foreign girl!"

Ayika had not felt this much resistance to one of her plans from Xinfei for years. In fact, for a while now he had mostly been an easily flustered doormat. She found herself getting angry as well. "Hey, I didn't force you to come along today! I'm sorry you got hurt last night but someone was killed! If you're too scared to help then stay away and I will do it myself!"

As soon as she said that Ayika knew she had gone too far. He had always been her partner in crime and he now looked genuinely betrayed. "Wait, Xinfei..."

He hunched his bony shoulders and shrugged her off. "Whatever, I can probably still sell some matches in what remains of today. See you tonight." He walked off, sliding into the heavy port traffic and disappearing.

Ayika stared at his departing back as her mouth worked for something to say to help put all that back together. A large rough hand landed gently on her shoulder. Xiaobao brought her in close to provide comfort. "He'll be fine," he said. "Just give him a moment to cool down. There are things in his life that don't look to pan out how he wishes they would, and being beat blue by the guards didn't help his self esteem. Not your fault but you know him, he'll bounce back."

Ayika leaned back a little against Xiaobao's chest, appreciating her older not-a-brother's presence. "Yeah, I guess." Why did everything seem out of her control? Things had been easier when they were kids. Above, a seabird let out a harsh cry and turned to spiral up into the sky.

...


	14. Conspiracy

...

The sun had long since set when Ayika climbed up from the Bed to walk past the long row of riverside ship berths in the dark and the damp. She shivered slightly at the first hint of autumn's chill and now wished she had put on a slightly heavier shirt above her hip-slit skirt and trouser combination. However, she did not think she could have withstood delaying her exit from the apartment even by those few seconds. Her mother had taken her dismissal from the school, however temporary, as a signal to begin redoubling her efforts to promote meetings between her daughter and every eligible male in the city. The whole thing made Ayika sick to her stomach and the ensuing screaming matches were not helping anyone. In the end she had stormed out saying only that she was meeting with the Bao brothers. She had not wanted to give them even that much information but the beseeching looks her tired father gave her convinced Ayika to provide him some reassurance. She had still slammed the uneven wooden door against her mom's shouting.

Even deep into the night there was still motion along the river docks in scattered pools of lamplight by the customs houses and company offices. Yet for the most part the space between the creaking ships and looming warehouses was empty and dark enough that Ayika found herself wishing Mister Gaoli could extend his pet gas-lamp project down here as well as up around his mansion in the Middle Ring. She could see over the roofs of the waterfront to where the city haze glowed orange from the perpetual day of the red forest of over-lit Exclusion towers. There people didn't have to stumble through streets in the dark or step in the fourth freaking puddle come on how did she keep hitting them!

"Psst! Ayika!" Xinfei's voice whispered out of the gloom.

Ahead, she could just make out a shape in the night waving at her. Make that two shapes, as a piece of wall detached and reformed its self into Xiaobao's familiar bulk.

"Hey," Ayika said, sliding up to their station in the shadows. "Two questions; has anyone seen Mizumi, and is there any particular reason we're standing in the dark?"

Xiaobao gave a short laugh. "Someone..." He nonverbally indicated to his side. "...felt like lighting a lantern would instantly attract every Public Safety agent in the city."

Xinfei bristled at his brother's jibe. "I just said that there was no need to draw attention to us hanging around out here trying to get involved with a conspiracy. It just-"

"Yeah, well could you spark it up?" Ayika said. "Mizumi's not exactly as familiar with this place and I don't want her stumbling into the river looking for us."

"Just give me a second to light it," Xiaobao said. He picked up a small hand-lantern from around his feet and then felt around on a nearby ledge on the wall. "I put the flint down somewhere..."

Xinfei sighed as he patted his clothes for something. "Let me see that." There was a scraping sound and flame blossomed in his hand. Gingerly holding the end of a short burning stick he stuck it under the hood of the lantern and caught the wick on the first try.

Xiaobao grunted in approval. "Ok, you may have actually been onto something with this product. What did you say was in those fire sticks?"

Xinfei was not listening. "And where is our foreigner? She was supposed to be here, those nationalists'll be arriving any minute. Not that I understand why we're taking her to an anti-Islander meeting in the first place, she's going to get us found out."

"Oh give it a break, please." Ayika said, looking down the street into the distant dark. "The war and occupation left plenty of mixed-race people out west. She passed fine at the teashop."

"Yeah, with those three Upper Ring idiots. But there's bound to be someone with brains out there. She's not exactly stealthy with her stomping around like she owns the place."

"Not stealthy, eh?" said a voice right behind him.

Ayika spun back around to see Xinfei jumping in fright. Xiaobao burst out with the laughter he had previously clamped behind his hand since he saw the female figure creeping up behind his brother with a finger to her lips. Mizumi lowered a lacy handkerchief mask from around her mouth with a laugh, and patted Xinfei on the arm in apology.

"My apologies, I should not have used stealth in that way."

"Good, you're here!" Ayika said. Tonight the Fire Nation girl had changed into a new outfit, which Ayika assumed was supposed to let her blend in with the nighttime citizenry of the harbor town outside the Exclusion. It was true that the cuts and patterns were to Kingdom fashions, and though those dark colored clothes might have allowed a pretty girl like Mizumi to blend in with the street traffic of the prosperous Middle Ring, down here amid the wharfs the intricate embroidery and quality fabric meant she could only be mistaken for a rather brazen thief or someone who clearly had no business out at these hours.

"Great disguise, Mizumi!" Ayika said and internally bit her tongue. She really had meant to raise those objections but the other girl was so clearly fishing for compliments on her covert operations skills that Ayika could not bring herself to do it. Xinfei rolled his eyes and Xiaobao raised his eyebrow at her but they decided there were now more pressing things to worry about. Mizumi was no longer the most out of place person here in the shadows beside the river. Voices from the distance bounced off the hulls of ships moored in their berths.

"Ow, it is _really_ dark down here!"

"Are you sure we're heading in the right direction?"

"Look, the Gaoli business was north of immigration docks so we went to the water there and headed north. One of those lights out there has to be that dockworker guy we're meeting."

The three university students from the tea house were making their stumbling way along the wharf street. One held a small lantern aloft whose narrow gleams seemed to more often lead them astray than guide them. It was hard to believe, but it appeared that the only concession the three had made to subtly was to throw a dark cape over their black and white university uniforms. After Ayika's concerns about Mizumi, the lack of effort seemed almost insulting. The chubby student, Jiang, was hunching his shoulders as if at least he felt embarrassed with their lack of stealth but Chonglong was squared up to punch the darkness in the chin and Zhangyi was as straight backed and graceful as ever. They were speaking in the exaggerated fake whispers that actors used in the operas but Ayika suspected they thought they were being genuinely careful.

"That next place just has some burly night's-watchman out front."

"Psh! It figures that skinny little wharf rat couldn't follow through."

"No no, he has to! We already spread the word that we had secured the Gaoli warehouse for tonight!

Ayika decided that this had gone on for long enough and moved to exit the shadows where Xinfei, Mizumi and her had been holding position. She stepped forward towards the path as the shortest university boy nudged their handsome leader who was looking very upset. Jiang said, "Of course, Zhangyi's just worried he won't get to see that little Water Tribe girl again."

Chonglong gave a small bark of laughter and Zhangyi swatted his friend away. "Hey, Jiang, be serious. There are going to be a lot of angry people showing up here very soon if we can't get in. After the disaster that hit the last meeting we need this new place." Whenever Zhangyi stopped walking he would strike a pose like the charismatic hero in the festival street performances. Amazingly, it seemed unintentional. Ayika wondered if he really did think she was pretty.

She was very close now but with the torch blinding them to the night she was completely invisible. This seemed as good a time as any to reintroduce herself. "Well if you're pressed for time, then you boys might as well come on in."

Ayika was rewarded for her stealthy approach with jumps and some rather mild cursing as the boys almost dropped their lantern. Eventually, after much excuse-making they were able to salvage their pride enough to come watch Xiaobao unlock the door to the warehouse. There was some lingering embarrassment but Zhangyi at least looked genuinely grateful to see Ayika. At her urging they filed inside under Xiaobao's watchful and quite distrustful gaze.

"Yes, this should do perfectly," Zhangyi said, raising up his lantern as his voice echoed slightly in the silence of the vast interior space of the warehouse. The free-spilling light leapt out over jumbles of crates and stacks of metal girders. Fortunately for their purposes, the warehouse was at an empty ebb in the shipping cycle and several clearings presented themselves in the ordered forest of stacked goods.

The nationalist boys, as benefited a secret cabal, appeared accustomed to making themselves at home in unfamiliar meeting places. As Zhangyi moved to arrange makeshift seats for the expected arrivals, Jiang split off to gather more lamps while Chonglong installed himself at the door to welcome in any fellow conspirators. Ayika, for all her bravado, felt very uncomfortable now that her plan was coming to completion and could feel the unease in her companions as well. Despite Mizumi's quiet protests of nonchalance some of Xinfei's worries must have sunk in and the foreign girl seemed intent on making herself unnoticeable. She found ways to stay close to Ayika's back as they drifted together around the soon to be meeting-place. Ayika herself started remembering all the nasty rumors Xinfei had told them about the Mask.

She watched the warehouses entrance over the next half hour as each new member of this nationalist group slid through the door. Meeting their eyes, Ayika fixed her face in a mask of assured confidence that she did not feel. For the most part these conspirators matched what she had expected; the young, the unsatisfied, and the unemployed. The usual suspects who would be bothered to join a political movement. But here and there she saw faces with more age and intensity than she couldn't easily dismiss. These figures with clothes like shopkeepers or higher, and eyes like tigers stood apart from the rest. They waited at the edge of the lantern-light and surveyed the coalescing meeting with a look that said they already knew what needed to be done and wanted to find out if these were the people to do it.

In a sudden moment of terror Ayika's heart leapt into her mouth when the two booze-swilling thugs who had accosted her and Xinfei outside the school came in, but one of them managed to look Ayika dead in the eye without any sign of recognition. She began to breath again. It seemed there were some advantages to men not pulling their gaze above her neck. She nudged Xinfei to scoot a bit further behind his brother, since he had been the one to actually set their boss on fire. That might have made more of an impression. Up above, the lamplight vanished into the shadowed rafters.

As the anti-foreign influence meeting began to informally commence Ayika tried to follow the growing tumult of conversation. However, there was little order to be found and the more ardent politicals spoke in a lexicon as alien to her as that of the foreigners they lambasted. Zhangyi did seem to be a well known personality here, but no matter how he tried to act the leader of this organization Ayika could see he was in a minority for believing he held that position. Several times he tried to seize control of the assembled body, announcing that they as brothers needed to redouble their efforts to spread the word against the insidious foreign corruption racing through the veins of their great city. But then another voice called back that they'd heard enough calls to action and now they needed actual action like what the Initiated had promised.

To Ayika, sounded like these 'Initiated' that Chonglong had mentioned previously and the group was now awaiting were a fairly recent addition to these little associations. As far as she could gather from the various conversations, before the coming of these new secretive leaders this was mostly a student nationalist movement and Zhangyi had held a lot more influence. Him and someone named Li Feng who seemingly had not been seen in a few weeks. No one knew what happened to Li though many people had theories that featured the Fire Nation, of course. The student protester's policy of making a big but ultimately harmless display was falling out of favor these days as tempers grew more fierce. Ayika heard people mention the Ambassador's death as an opportunity, and a few other whispers that Li Feng had made a smart decision to stop coming to these useless meetings. The meeting began to gradually erupt in contrasting voices.

Xiaobao gently nudged Ayika's arm and leaned down to whisper. "It sounds like there's been a shakeup recently. Half these guys seem to be pulling on a different beat. Your college boy is losing control of his movement here."

Suddenly something new was happening. Ayika felt a chill run up her spine as a hush washed across the heated, arguing rabble. Out of the shadowed warehouse entrance a new figure emerged, dressed in nondescript but well-made clothes of indeterminate style. Nothing was remarkable about him save the face-concealing mask carved from wood painted in blue and yellow. He moved forward like a sauntering tiger and the nationalists parted around him. For all the scraps of respect Zhangyi was fighting for, this man received them effortlessly. He was their leader and if Ayika was to judge by the reactions of the other members he had done something fearsome to earn that title. This had to be The Mask.

For a second Ayika felt the irrational urge to call out for justice, but no, this was not the mask of the man who had attacked Lizhen. The face in the school had been white like bone while this was painted in stripes of blue and gold. She couldn't prove that they were the same man yet.

Xinfei was clearly nervous about anything mask related and Xiaobao looked on with uncertain curiosity but Ayika faced a sudden pall of dread. Something about this masked man reminded her of the smell of smoke. She blinked to clear her thoughts. Ma'er the 'gardener' knew her face, if that was him under that crafted veil, but only as a servant so her presence should not be suspicious. He didn't know they had been in his house. Without realizing it she took a small step backwards, bumping against Mizumi behind her.

The man was dressed in dull brown colors and a wide belt with a metal clasp over his robes. His entire face was hidden behind that beaked mask made of wood or lacquer. Those disguised eyes stared out at the assembled protestors, searching the surrounding faces for something or someone he expected to see. Ayika found herself half hiding her face behind Xiaobao's broad shoulder, for it seemed to her there was an unnatural gleam in those wooden sockets. The Mask did not find who it was looking for, and on one arm his fingers flexed in furious claw-like motions. But then the moment passed and his movements were smooth and controlled again.

Mizumi leaned in over Ayika's shoulder to whisper in her ear. "Is that one of the masks you saw in the secret room? It looks like something one might see at an East Island theater. Do they use props like that in operas here as well?"

Mizumi's voice jarred Ayika's brain back into thought. She tried to think back to the ranks of masks hung like trophies in Ma'er's secret room. She didn't remember seeing this face but it could have been hidden in some nook. Still, that was not proof.

"I see the reach of the truth has grown!" The man in the mask began, his voice booming out over the whispering convocation. "You who were the first to gather together have done your good work. Our brothers and sisters have awoken to the demons in their midst and know that they have been deceived!"

The crowd echoed back in murmured reply.

"They know that they have been betrayed!"

Now the response show a coherent emergence of an echoed "Betrayed!"

"They know that those who claim to serve the will of the king and the nation have conspired with our enemies! And they know that they have been sold!"

"Sold!" Roared back the crowd.

Mizumi pressed up to Ayika's back again and whispered into her ear. "That is Ma'er we are thinking, correct? Does it sound like him? I am bad at picking out Kingdom accents."

Ayika did not find time to reply. With an acrobat's catlike distain for gravity the man in the mask leapt to the top of a pile of crates and continued his exhortations to the crowd, lifting his fist to the sky.

"And so our neighbors and our brothers have awoken to find themselves lost without a protector! Our officials speak lies of compromise. The great men of the city have been bought with foreign treasure. Our culture and our gods have been abandoned to insult and pollution. Even now, while the children of the rich drape themselves in foreign fashion and our streets are stabbed with foreign iron, the devils plan to deify one of their own! Here in our city, they prepare the rights to elevate a foreigner ambassador to power on an equal level with our spirit gods!"

The energy was infectious. Ayika see even those nationalists who were still wavering in their support for this leader nod and stamp in outrage. The masked speaker was vibrating with restrained force but the hand he held out to silence the crowd was as still as steel. Ayika was much better than Mizumi at discerning accents but something about this man's voice made it difficult for her to place. In any case, it would take more than a voice to identify Ma'er. They needed something certain they could bring to the guards. Some admission of guilt. If nothing else they needed to find out when the next meeting would be held so they could set the guards on them there. Now the Mask's voice was soft, and yet still managed to echo across the piles of merchandise.

"For too long the enemies of our people have thought themselves invincible while their lackeys nip at our heels. But we will strike back! Do you think we were chased here to this shipyard? Their attack on our meeting two nights ago was meant to be a show of their strength but it shall now be met with a display of our own. In this very warehouse lies a secret store of corrupt spoils from the insidious Fire Nation! Well, this traitor Gaoli will profit from his treason no more! His smuggled treasures will be smashed! True sons of the Kingdom have strength these foreign devils will never know!" He raised his arms as the crowd roared back in agreement.

"Woah, woah. What?!" Xiaobao growled. He stood up very suddenly and as Ayika grabbed his forearm to calm him she felt his tensed muscles twitching under his skin. "They're going to destroy Mister Gaoli's merchandise? Xinfei, you didn't say a damn thing about this!" Despite this anger, acknowledgment of their outnumbered position led him to keep to a low tone.

"I didn't know!" Xinfei hissed, looking almost as panicked. "They just said they needed a meeting spot! Those college boys said nothing about smashing! Ayika, what do we do?!"

Xinfei turned to Ayika, his eyes wide in desperation but she had no ideas. They were outnumbered six to one and Ma'er in the mask would notice if that many people slipped away. Just looking at him now made Ayika's head hurt. She felt a pressure against the fabric of the world, the sensation of things moving in the shadows, but she supposed that must be her own fear. She had never felt anything like this before Professor Lizhen's final night, this intuition. Something bad was coming. Their odds worsened further as another newcomer slipped through the warehouse door to join the crowd, a young man nervously clutching a large bag in front of him.

Strangely, Mizumi was the calmest of them all despite being in a meeting dedicated to the ruination of her kind. "Relax. It is all bluster," she whispered to the Bao brothers, a small smile on her lips. "They are not going to find any Fire Nation products here to smash. Aizhang Gaoli imports all his Fire Nation goods from my father and I know for a fact that there is nothing left on the docks right now. In fact, father was just complaining a few days ago that Gaoli had no spare engines for Father's rail project until the next shipment arrives in half of a week. See, I believe some crucial machinery pieces that my father had shipped in were broken during Mister Gaoli's unloading and so he told my father that a replacement would need to be ordered from..."

As Mizumi was speaking quiet reassurances Ayika watched the latest arrival to the meeting. He was desperately trying to push through the crowd with his bag to get near the man in the mask. The hair on the back of her neck was standing up with each step forward he took but she thought she might recognize the young man. Something about him seemed familiar. She tried to place his face in the brief glimpses she caught but she was interrupted by a sudden burst of activity from the bird-masked demagog whipping the protesters into a fury.

With abrupt ferocity the man in the mask dashed across the room to the far wall of the warehouse with the strength and grace of a trained assassin. Something about him seemed even more wild now, and Ayika still felt a deep uneasiness radiating from him. Ayika moved forward in the tide of men and lanterns pushing for a view in time to see the masked figure punch his fist through the wood planks of the wall. In an instant, what must have been very thin slats ripped like paper and in the dancing lamplight the Mask posed strangely in front of the newly exposed hole, the suggestion of vague colored shadows roiling around him. Ayika stepped back from the growing sensation of horror as everyone else moved forward to see what the masked man had revealed.

Behind the newly revealed false wall was a secret room filled with mounds of machinery, all emblazoned with the tell-tale flame of the Fire Nation. Swearing and invectives swelled through the crowd. The man in the mask snapped around and his deep voice rang out again. "It looks like Mister Gaoli was so desperate for his foreign goods he didn't even want to wait to pay customs! This is the true greedy heart of those who call themselves 'reformers'. They say they want to 'modernize' but all they really want is to take our money and hand it over to foreigners! Two nights ago one of their bender agents attacked our meeting. They wanted to frighten us! To scare us into hiding, into abandoning the welfare of our fellow citizens! Well, we accept the challenge! Tonight the true power of our nation is among you so not even benders can threaten us! No more shall we be content with talk, only action will do! We will bring the fight to them!"

Cheers resounded through the cavernous warehouse as the men pumped their fists into the air and even the flames in their lanterns seemed to reach up, dancing in mob-like agreement. The flames were dancing. Ayika suddenly focused on the sight of those wavering fires. She had seen that before, in the halls of the school right before the white mask attacked. It was the same sign. The same power.

None of the other nationalists seemed to notice the radiating strangeness Ayika felt around that mask and they converged to this scene of revelation in the secret room. The protesters surged past the man in the mask and began to smash at the hidden machines with bars of metal an other crude tools. Xiaobao ran forward to protect his boss's merchandise. "Hey! Hey! You can't..." One of the men turned on him with sudden suspicion. He thought quickly. "I mean, someone outside might hear!"

Zhangyi and his student organizers appeared at Xiaobao's side. Zhangyi and Jiang seemed similarly concerned about this sudden turn to destruction of property, even if the property was suspiciously hidden and possibly illegal. Zhangyi called out. "He's got a point guys! Careful about the sound of metal on metal; that is loud! We can't afford to get the meeting broken up again!"

However, his tall friend Chonglong had no concern for this caution, "Ah, shut up Zhangyi. You aren't one of the Initiated and weak-willed speeches like that are why you never will be." He called out and caught a crowbar that was tossed to him by another agent of destruction. "This, not those stupid posters is what we are supposed to be doing! Stop holding us back. Hell, even that nervous gardner boy who just joined up was still elevated to Initiated before us!" He pointed across the room where the newcomer with heavy sack was still trying to reach the bird faced man through the crowd. As Chonglong called out the young man looked up and for the first time Ayika got a good view of his face. She had seen him at the school, and at the garden designer's house. It was Ma'er's assistant, Tian!

In that same moment Tian looked at her. Then he looked past her to where Mizumi was standing. Terrified recognition surged across his face. He could tell what her appearance at both his boss's house and this secret meeting must mean. Tian's head whipped back and forth in indecision, undoubtably thinking about calling for his master in the mask but cowardice won out and he ran off towards the other shadowed end of the warehouse. The man in the bird mask really was Ma'er! They had proof! The murderer would be brought to justice!

Amidst the growing chaos, Ayika was focused. Ma'er in his mask was out of her grasp for now as long as he stayed in that crowd of people destroying Islander merchandise but she had another lead in front of her. She just needed to grab the assistant and make him talk. Shaking off Xinfei and Mizumi she dashed forward into the shadowed stacks after where the young man had fled. He had a lead but he was clumsy in the dim and shifting light.

Ayika chased after Tian, leaving the Bao brothers behind despite their cries. The gardener's assistant was trying to escape but he took a wrong turn past a stack of carved chests from Yi province and his run ended at a flat brick wall. Far above, a glimmer of moonlight shone through a high window mixing its pale white light with the fierce orange of the strangely powerful lanterns.

Ayika slid to a stop in the aisle, blocking the path back through the stacks. "Stop!" She yelled, balling her fists and finding the cracks in the floor-stones to secure her footing. Tian spun, eyes wide with fear that seemed to encompass more than just her. He still clutched the large awkward package in front of him; inside was some irregular object the size of a large plate and he seemed intent on not losing it. It was the size of the package his master had given to the professor; the package that the murderer in the white mask had stolen from Lizhen's office. Ayika said, "Professor Lizhen! They killed him. Why!? What did you give him! A weapon, a curse? Is that it?"

The young man tightened his hold on the sack with one arm while his other hand searched at his belt. He was mumbling to himself, "They weren't supposed to kill him. Just get back what was taken. I was supposed to tell them no. But they were strong. Stronger than before. They got stronger when they got near it! Did he know that?"

Suddenly Tian lunged forward, and the blade of a small knife glinted in his outstretched hand. Ayika raised her palms, preparing to catch his arm and spin him, hoping that this worked as well as it did when she and Xinfei were play-fighting, wishing they had not just been making up moves for fun. She had grown up in the Bed, so she knew too well what knife wounds looked like.

"Look out!"

The cry came from behind her. There was the sound of dashing footsteps and someone carried their running momentum forward to spring off a crate and deliver a hard kick to the assistant gardener's chest. Tian went tumbling into the wall of merchandise to his side and Mizumi landed in front of Ayika, panting lightly with her fists raised. She turned to Ayika, "You are ok?"

"Yeah, fine." Ayika ran up to stomp the knife out of the downed man's hand. He gave it up easily, rolling to the side to protect his concealed burden. As he scrabbled back against the brick wall that marked the end of the building one arm reached deep down into his satchel, searching for something other than the main bulky object. Ayika advanced on him with Mizumi at her side. "Why did The Mask attack Lizhen to take back what he just gave him that afternoon? Answer me! Or do we need to go back over there rip that blue and yellow bit off Ma'er's coward face!" She pointed back to where the dissidents had been destroying Gaoli's hidden Fire Nation machines.

Her interrogation did not get the reaction she expected. Tian was suddenly confused. "What?Ma'er? Ma'er is not in the mask."

"He...What?" Ayika had the sudden sensation of putting a foot down and not feeling ground.

Mizumi was just as thrown off. "Then what are you doing here? What is your Master doing?"

The young man hung his head, seemingly exhausted but Ayika could see the arm reaching inside the bag trembling with bulging tendons and twitching rope-like muscles. He muttered, almost to himself. "There was a plan. I was the bait. The butcher's goat. But there are more than two sides, not just reformers and conservatives, good and bad. Now I see the shadows, hear the whispers. The skin of the world is too tight, the rising music, and dark men on the street know me! The ritual is started, not concluded. I don't want to give it to these people, but what choice do I have?"

"Answer her!" Ayika yelled. "We found the room of masks in your master's house! What did he have to do with Lizhen's death? Who is Ma'er?!"

Tian looked up with the face of one who is about to willingly leap off a cliff. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hand was still hidden inside the bag. "He is the hunter."

That was when the warehouse shuddered with the sound of splitting stone as a wall abruptly exploded with earthbending.

...


	15. Hunter

...

Near the center of the warehouse the long outer wall exploded inward. That impenetrable mass of masonry suddenly slammed open in two sheafs like the wings of a double door, spraying the warehouse with the spitting shards of shattered bricks. A lone human figure in the dark green robes and a cloth wrapped around his face darted inside through the dust.

Now a single second had passed and nationalists began to turn their heads towards the sound. The intruder ran forward and his fists jerked up in simultaneous upper-cuts, causing a huge stone block of the floor to shoot up towards the rafters in sympathetic magic. The man followed, launched into the air by a sudden spike of stone from the floor until he floated to the apogee where the flying slab was deciding to begin its descent. There, hidden behind that airborne shield, the man began to blast the rock apart with lightning jabs, sending fragments hurtling down as projectiles towards the assembled nationalists.

All this was a matter of seconds. Even the man in the blue and yellow mask only had time to turn his face towards this attack. The veiled earth-bender then finished with a mid-air double kick, propelling himself back up to land on a rafter beam and rocketing the remaining slab down to turn his masked target into a crater.

"Bender!" One of the other protesters yelled quite unnecessarily over the rising screams.

Ayika and Mizumi were frozen in the midst of their confrontation with Tian as they turned to watch this new attack. The earth-bender was terrifying, a demonstration of incredible power that could snap any normal human like a twig. The crowd of angry protesters, men and boys, was instantly broken, huddling against walls and behind crates, shielding their faces from flying debris. Only a brave few were still standing and some were lying sprawled on the ground groaning from injuries. Several lanterns had smashed and spilled their burning oil across wooden crates. The strangely enhanced fire lapped hungrily as the flames danced.

Then the dust cleared and man in the mask still stood in its center. He stepped loosely and easily from the newly formed pile of rubble, brushing his knuckles with his other hand. Somehow he had dodged every bit of that explosive attack. It was almost as if he had punched his way through that block of stone, used pure strength instead of bending. To Ayika's eyes the man's outline wavered and swelled around the mask on his face or perhaps that was her own imagination explaining this impossibility.

The Mask looked up at the bender who was perched atop a rafter beam like a hawk preparing to stoop, amid the growing plums of smoke. The Mask tilted to the side in the manner of the bird whose face he wore.

"You look like a Public Safety agent," he said. "You fight like one. But you're not. They would not attack alone. You're the one who has been harassing us and you have no authority here, bender!" The Mask spread his legs into a fighting stance and flexed his fingers like claws. The cool, seductive voice he had spoken with when the meeting started was gone. Beneath the mask his jaws rang out with the snapping of teeth. "Our power is greater than yours, for ours is the true holy power of our culture! I can feel its strength growing here and now!" Around him, the advancing flames spread from oil to wood, dancing in strange and energetic patterns.

The earthbender dropped down from his high perch and the stone floor inflated to catch him. As he hit the cushioning stones one foot made a stamping motion and the mask man found his own feet and lower legs swallowed by the living earth. The attacker's face wrap had loosened during his first lightning assault but he was now too focused to catch it as it slowly slid down to his shoulders. Xinfei peaked over the box he was hiding behind to see the bender's scarred face look up as he flowed into his next bending stance, preparing for a killing blow without saying a single word. The earthbender was Ma'er the gardener. They had gotten this conspiracy very wrong.

Ma'er clenched his fist, there was an explosion of breaking stone, and the masked man was gone. But Ma'er showed no triumph, and instead jerked back whipping his head around in a frantic search of the warehouse past the spreading fire.

That voice from behind the mask range out again from somewhere in the vast room. "Yes, that trick of yours has worked on brothers before. But we are the voice of the city, and we now grow stronger every day!" The man in the mask had gotten behind Ma'er, moving faster than any opponent should. He burst through a growing wall of flames and his fist splintered the side of a wooden crate where Ma'er had been standing until a second ago. The mask whipped back to focus on Ma'er, eyes gleaming, just as the gardener shot two dark projectiles out of the sleeves of his robe. The stone bracelets fastened to each of the masked man's wrists and froze them in place, pulling back to counter the mad energy of the man forcing them forward. Ma'er clenched his teeth and brought his fists together with great effort. The masked man's arms were wrenched back behind him, the enchanted stones at his wrists fastening into crude restraints as they forced him to kneel. Behind him, the flames still spread.

The air was growing hot from the dancing fire and Ayika coughed on the building smoke. "Holy hell," was her reaction to that fight. Mizumi said something foreign that Ayika had to imagine was even fouler. Well, it looked like Ma'er was not the Mask. She looked back at the young assistant Tian still trapped against the wall at the end of the lane of stacks. He was still terrified and shaking despite his master's victory.

Ayika said, "That bird faced man was an amazing fighter. And there was something about him, something about that mask; power. Freaky, but it still couldn't beat a trained bender, so why were you so worried about the Mask? You work for the guy who just beat him!"

Mizumi opened her mouth to say something but stopped. The rest of the protesters were getting to their feet, stretching shirts over their mouths and noses to try and keep out the smoke. For the most part they looked just as out of their element as Ayika felt. Fire bloomed into the air as a suitable backdrop this final meeting between Ma'er and the Mask. The university boys futilely tried to beat out some of the nearby blazes, and were indeed joined by several other uninjured protesters however the fire grew and evaded them as if it too was alive. It was beyond their power to stop.

Over the crackle of the flames she thought she could hear Zhangyi and Xiaobao yelling for people to get out of the building. Ma'er stood silhouetted in front of those unnaturally spreading and blooming fires as he walked towards the restrained man in the mask who was thrashing and straining with his arms clamped in stone behind his back, roaring and hissing more like an animal than a human. The flickering light sent his shadows dancing so at times Ayika thought it looked like they were pulling at his limbs like a puppet's strings. Ma'er was tired, breathing heavily but he kept the stone cuffs magically held in place and as he reached the captive his hand snaked out to rip the mask off. As soon as it was gone, the captive man collapsed panting. Ayika recognized the well dressed man with the mole above his eye. Xinfei had set him on fire outside the school. Four of the other protesters who were not yet trying to flee took a few steps foreword, blank faced and listless at their leader's defeat.

Tian looked wearily at Ayika and Mizumi. His hand continued to twitch towards the bundle of two objects he held. "Ma'er can defeat one. For now. But the name of the society is not The Mask. It is The _Masks_."

In one motion the four advancing men reached inside their robe, their jacket, or their satchel. As one they drew forth painted wooden masks, wild and snarling in their different faces. Ayika heard a sound beyond the range of her hearing and felt waves of pressure both before and behind her. As each mask came down the men's posture changed. Instead of shrinking back they leaned forward, flexing their hands like claws. They stopped looking at each other and focused solely on Ma'er. Then they raced forward with a roar like a charging army.

Ayika saw Ma'er spin to meet the new threat and instantly launch into the offensive as the four men leaped into their attack. Ma'er smashed the floor into a rippling wave but the masks avoided it with expert speed. Beside her she heard Mizumi yell, "Ayika!" as she threw an arm to shield her from the flying debris. The flames were racing up the walls, burning across wood and brick with equal unconcern as the ceiling vanished in roiling black clouds. The fire was spreading with unnatural rapidity but its abnormality made it no less dangerous. Distantly, Ayika wondered if there was a firebender around.

"Right. Time to go." Ayika said. She gestured behind her back at Tian. "Grab this guy now and we can..."

As she turned back her voice fell away. The aisle was empty, there was only a tall empty wall before her. The gardener's assistant was gone. Nothing remained.

"Where is he! Where'd he go! We have to find him! Get back here!" She screamed out at the tall stacks of crates on each side of her.

"Ayika, we must run!" Mizumi grabbed her shoulder. Ayika pulled back. There was a small window four meters up the wall. It was broken but no one could climb that distance in seconds. There was no where Tian could have gone. Had an earthbender taken him through the bricks? How could she let him get away? She had failed and was now stuck in a burning building rocking with the combat of five deadly fighters and no answers to her questions. A scream of pure frustration tore its way out of her throat. No one but Mizumi could hear it over the sound of the fire.

...

The neighborhood fire bells rang out into the night, the clanging peals of metal resounding off the large buildings of the waterfront and on to fade out over the river. Inside the warehouse, the tinny noise could only dimly be heard over the crackling of splitting wood and the fury of the flames. Somewhere in the confusion, the sounds of smashing stone and shattering crates signaled the bender Ma'er's fight with the members of the Masks.

Amid all this danger Ayika could do nothing but whip her head back and forth, looking at every impossibly small nook for where Tian had gone. He had known something about Lizhen's death! He was going to tell her something!

Mizumi pulled hard on her arm. "Ayika, come on! We must get out of here!" She coughed into the crook of her own elbow as she tried to look for a path of escape through the smoke. Ayika was torn away from her vigil and together they ran back towards the center of the spreading flames, looking for an open way to the exit.

"Ayika!"

Someone was calling her name in the stinging smoke. She pressed close to Mizumi, neither could see well past the light of the fire and the toxic haze that pressed their eyes nearly closed. But ahead Ayika spotted someone through a gap in the stacks of merchandise, bare-chested save for a swath of bandages and with a dirty shirt wrapped over his mouth and nose.

Xinfei spotted the two of them and urged them on. "This way! Xiaobao's holding the door open! Come on!"

Groping in the haze, Xinfei found Mizumi's reaching hand and the three hurried off in the direction Ayika could only hope held the exit. This part of the building had not yet taken aflame and as they turned a corner she could see around the edge of the last stack aisle, past a tall pile of thick dark wood planks, to the wall where someone of comfortably familiar height and bulk was standing in an open doorway apparently struggling with someone outside. Ayika and the others ran forward towards Maolin but suddenly there was a shattering cacophony behind them. Something hit Ayika hard, several somethings, and she went down. Mizumi's fingers slipped out of her hand as the stack of lumber burst out towards them, sliding down like an avalanche of giant game tiles. Ayika screamed. The blows had bowled her over but she gritted her teeth as she tried to get back to her feet, lifting up a slab of wood destined to be an expensive table or wardrobe so she could free her leg. That was when she saw a man in a mask pulling himself out from where he had landed in the middle of the lumber stack. The fire was spreading and warehouse's exit was no longer visible in the smoke.

The carved visage of a long nosed daemon was worn by a pudgy older man, dressed in clothes that suggested someone who nowadays lifted pens and papers at most. But as Ayika watched, the man sprawled across the floor flexed his back and with a swing of his legs flipped up to his feet with the grace of an acrobat or expert fighter at odds with his physique. The stinging haze of smoke made it difficult to see and to Ayika's reddening eyes the man's form was blurring and doubling. Then the mask swung around and met Ayika's gaze. That is why the man almost didn't dodge the two bricks that flew through the air to smash together in the space his head had occupied half a second previously.

The masked man jerked back with feral speed as Ma'er landed heavily from somewhere high above. The 'gardener' sank into a well-grounded attack stance. He spun around, fists raised, eyes searching the smoke and fire as beside him Ayika staggered to her feet in the pile of toppled lumber. Ma'er's steely eyes passed over her and dismissed her in a bare second; for good reason. In that moment a shift in the flow of superheated air swept away some of the smoke and revealed a semi circle of four masked figures standing atop the parallel rows of crates and other imports.

Beside Ayika, the so-called gardener sighed with deep and furious weariness. His face was bruised and his bared teeth showed the blood stains of received punches. "Well, let's have it then!" Ma'er yelled out, sinking lower as he bent his knees and clenched his fists.

The masked men did not look as certain. The animalistic ferocity that had governed the motions of their defeated leader and these four when they had first started their attack was now seeping out of them. They did not seem to relish continuing the attack against this trained and desperate bender.

"There is nothing to be gained here," the first said.

"We should have long since been gone. The strength is now diminishing."

"The guards will be here soon, we must not be caught."

Nodding together, the four of them bent down and jumped back into the fire and smoke. They moved impossibly fast, like lightning, and now they were completely gone.

Ma'er swore, but he did not give chase. Ayika huddled back against a pile of broken chairs as the bender thrust his fists at the ground in frustration. The floor rumbled in commiserate anger. Ayika turned and looked for some way to escape. This man could kill her with a flick of his hand. The ground could open up and swallow her whole. The bird-masked man had said Ma'er was not Public Safety but at the moment that made him no less terrifying. He was an earthbender unbound by law or regulation. Ayika inched to the side, trying not to flinch at her own bruises. The false gardener's head jerked up and his eyes fell on her. Her eyes stung and her lungs burned and she saw no path of escape.

The door to outside was now blocked by a large and awkward pile of collapsed wood but Ma'er turned to a blank warehouse wall and with a few gestures of his hands the bricks parted to form a small door. He reached out his arm to grab Ayika with calloused fingers. She was still pressed back against the stack of crates. Her choices were him or a wall of rapidly growing flame. "Up, girl. You're coming with me." Ma'er pulled her through the opening out into the alley beside the warehouse.

Ayika struggled against him and yelled back inside for Xinfei and Mizumi, not knowing if they were still trapped in the burning building. She screamed for them to get out. For one blissful second her captor's rough fingers loosened their hold on her arm and she tried to run back inside and help them. Ma'er caught her shoulder and spun her. "Idiot. You go back in there and you die. And all for some stupid cause that you don't even understand..." He suddenly stopped and grabbed her chin in a painful grip, raising her face to meet his eyes. "What...?" he said softly. "You're that girl from the school yesterday. And today, I saw you outside my house." Ayika struggled but his grip was stronger than any person she had encountered before. Any person except the white masked man in Lizhen's office. Ma'er continued, "What are you-?"

"Ayika!" A cry sounded out of the dark.

Mizumi came running down the alley, followed shortly behind by the two Bao brothers. When she saw Ma'er's hold on Ayika she turned profile and raised her fists in a striking stance. "Let her go!"

"If you think..." Ma'er began darkly, but then he stopped in surprise once more. "Miohuito's daughter?" He stared at the group of them in redoubled confusion. "But why would he-"

The bells of the fire tower ringing out its alarm were now joined by the approaching sounds of smaller bells and the swell of yelling voices from an approaching crowd a few streets over. Ma'er's head quickly swiveled to the direction of the sound. He growled deeply but when Ayika tugged at her arm he let it go.

Free, she quickly turned and backed up towards Mizumi as she said, "All right, I've got questions now too! First, what-"

Ma'er made a quick motion with his hands and the ground rippled up under their feet. In a split second the bender was launched far away into the dark night air, the reverberations of his earth magic sending Ayika and Mizumi stumbling together into a wall and Xinfei bowled over on the unsettled alley floor.

Xinfei propped himself into a sitting position with his arms behind him, groaning as his old bruises once again insisted on themselves. "Well," he said. "This night went great."

...


	16. Fire

...

Ma'er had vanished. The various nationalists who had been at the meeting were now long gone into the night, as were the mask wearers. Ayika and her friends ran out of the dark alley to the street on the canal side of the burning Gaoli warehouse where there was now a new sound added to the lapping of water and flames. They could see in both directions that a flow of approaching spectators were making their way along the streets and across the bridges of the town; people roused by the clanging of the fire bell to view the excitement. From the sounds drifting over the canal there were already several knots of discussion in the rapidly growing crowd focused around the possibility of organizing a bucket-line but those ambitions were daunted by the burning warehouse's immense size and the close proximity of its fellows on each side. Robbed of an obvious answer, the ever-helpful people of the city defaulted to standing and watching the smoke while making low gasping noises under their breath.

Ayika felt numb despite her new collection of bruises. She didn't understand what had happened and her head ached. Xinfei was at her side franticly asking if Ma'er had harmed her in any way but her mind focused on the men in the masks. Something about them had not been natural. But she found she could not articulate her worries and none of her friends appeared to share that strange feeling. Mizumi was anxiously discussing what it meant that earthbenders were fighting nationalists and who were the men wearing masks but the other three were too winded to contribute much mental effort to such analysis. Xiaobao suggested that such matters could be resolved when everything was not on fire. Mizumi got much quieter when Xinfei shot back that the strange behavior of the flames sounded like the kind of thing the adepts of her nation got involved with.

Then there was a commotion where the gathering crowd met the nearest bridge as a group of men from the fire station, pulling a wagon laden with loose dirt, fought to break through the mob's surface. The government-badged earthbender who led that convoy was clearly ready to start tearing up the paving-stones under people's feet to make a path but when he got a full view of the warehouse and the black smoke billowing out of glowing orange windows he sagged. Above, the smoke mixed into a night sky of textured opacity. While Ayika huddled with Mizumi and Xinfei, Xiaobao ran over to the fire patrol to offer what help he could out of civic duty and desire to not be left unemployed in the ash.

He came up next to the fire brigade bender and gestured to the nearest wall of the building, yelling to be heard above the chattering spectators. "I work here! The fire's only spread through about a quarter of the space inside. If you bend open a door in the bricks here you might be able to smother it all, or at least let us save most of the merchandise! I can send someone up to get Mister Gaoli while we do!"

The man shook off Xiaobao's insistent hand. "Hands off, guy!" Another man in a fire patrol headband rushed forward to shove Xiaobao back, an effort that produced much less motion than the man might have expected. Xiaobao was very good at standing firm.

The fire captain scratched his beard as he continued to survey the situation, not actually looking at Xiaobao's face. "We've only got this one cart of dirt until more manages to fight its way through this crowd. We're wetting it down to put on the other roofs around here. If I go poking holes in the wall I'm just going to feed the flames more air and weaken the whole structure. We're so near the Exclusion that there's only one patrol station close by so we got no extra men to try saving this place, only prevent damage to other buildings. Call your boss if you want, by the time he gets here this will likely just be burned rubble." He turned to the rest of his team who had formed a small bucket-line pulling water out of the canal to dump on the pile of dirt in the cart. "You all done yet?"

When he got an affirmative yell, the fire team leader waved his men away from the cart and spread his stance, bending his knees as he brought his fists in close to his waist. The volume of the crowd suddenly dropped as the push reversed its direction and people fought to give space to the man employing the bending arts. The man stamped his foot and using slow, strong movement began to do his work, magically launching loads of damp earth out of the cart with each motion of his arms and legs. Ayika could hear the thuds of those widely spread projectiles landing on top of the buildings that bordered Gaoli's warehouse. That would stop any stray sparks igniting the roofs of other structures but it would do nothing to save the original site.

Xinfei tugged at his brother's arm. "Come on man, let's get out of here. Ayika's pretty bashed up. No one should be asking about us unlocking the doors since that gardener guy knocked holes in the brick walls but trust me, you don't want to wait for the guards to work that out. Not to mention that Ma'er guy could still be out somewhere!"

Ayika was about to protest that she was fine and Xiaobao could do what he wanted, but as she raised her hand to give her assurances she saw a bit of blood seeping across her arm from several scrapes and cuts. Suddenly she felt all the injuries she had sustained when the lumber fell on her surge back to awareness. For an instant in that pain and vanishing adrenaline she felt light-headed but Mizumi tightened her hold on her and Ayika was able to hide the brief swaying. In lieu of anything more physically strenuous she shook her head to wave away any special concerns.

Xiaobao was stricken by indecision, trading off between searched the faces of the crowd for some prospect of help and looking back at the now condemned property of his employer. He spoke aloud, not directing his words at anyone in particular. "Look at how many people there are here. We can't just give up and do nothing."

Xinfei shrugged. "Yeah, well you know the City. Everyone loves to watch a tragedy as long as they don't have to lift a finger."

Mizumi was looking at something over the canal, back in the direction of the center of town. "It looks like those people are doing something." She pointed at the far end of the nearest bridge, where a new commotion was arising.

Ayika and Xinfei turned to see some disturbance rippling its way through the mass of fire-watchers. As the clamor of bells drew nearer Ayika thought that this might be another cart of dirt from the fire patrol post. However, as she began to catch glimpses of the approaching party she realized she was wrong. She did not know what this was.

Two daft-beasts were strung in tandem in front of a cart or carriage of some kind. It was about five paces long but none of the ten men pushing through the crowd along beside it were riding. Instead those wheels supported several contraptions of metal and leather, including what looked like a metal tank, an odd furnace, and some weird flat canvas ropes in addition to what Ayika could only guess was part of a printing press or a torture device. It was all some strange machine being wheeled towards the fire by men dressed in red.

The beasts in harness snorted as their claws clicked against the paving stones and the wheels scraped slightly as the halt command was given in front of the burning building. Suddenly, something about these newcomers that had been tickling Ayika's mind flashed to clarity. Even as she was half hanging off Mizumi's arm Ayika somehow did not make the connection until she heard orders being barked in a buzzing, rolling foreign tongue. These men with the machine were Fire Nation. Most of them wore uniforms with highlights of red that she took for some type of livery, however, a few of the others wore robes and overcoats that though hastily and sloppily donned were obviously of very high quality. One man in particular in a black robe edged with red seemed to be in control. Then that man turned to gesture to something at the canal and Ayika felt fingernails dig into her arm as Mizumi tightened her grasp. Tetzamatl Miohuito was here twenty paces away from them.

Ayika angled her body slightly to provide Mizumi a little cover, as the other girl clearly thought her father would take a disapproving view of finding his daughter out here in the night. However, Mister Miohuito was distracted. He had switched to the language of the Kingdom, now calling for help to put some sort of pipe from the cart's apparatus into the canal. The government earthbender stopped his dirt distributing efforts and was now stomping over to find out what the hell these foreigners thought they were doing. Miohuito saw this advance and moved to intercept as another member of his party in red robes opened a little metal door into one of the devices on their cart and began peaking inside it.

Xinfei leaned in near Ayika, oblivious to the ominous familial proximity and instead interested in the strange contraption on the wagon. "Hey, Mizumi, what is that? It looks like it might have some sort of burner they're trying to light. You know, I actually might be able to help out there, I've got my box of matches right here. Or in this pocket, no wait, where did they go? I thought..."

However, as Xinfei patted his vest and pants it looked like the man in red robes had run out of patience as he straightened up and spread his palm in front of the little door in the metal tank. Then he made a sharp motion and blazing light briefly bloomed from his hand. Firebender. The presence of a foreign bender did not do anything to ease the mind of the city fire patrol's leader. He stomped up to Miohuito. "I'm going to need you to get your people back to the Exclusion right now! We've got plenty of fire here already and your machinery is blocking space for my guys to bring in more earth carts! I've got to keep this thing from spreading right now and for that I really need about six more earthbenders which I haven't got!"

Mister Miohuito was smooth and gracious. "Of course, captain. That is why we are here to lend a hand. You might not have enough benders to surround the fire nor we to control it, however, together we may be able to fight it."

The patrol captain looked skeptical. He glanced over at the collection of tanks, pipes and tubes that now, under the careful direction of the foreign bender who's strange motions were fortunately no longer producing plumes of fire but did seem to be guiding the machine in shuddering movements and high pitched whistling noises. "Your guys can make fire, can they put it out? And you got anymore than that one?"

Miohuito was yelling back at the rest of the Fire Nation crew working on the machine. "Is the hose secure? Tank primed? How is the pressure looking?" He apparently liked the answers he got because he turned back to the captain and said, "No, Rishi is the only firebender I that was able to rouse on such short notice, but we do have a force multiplier." He waved his arm and one of his men fiddled with a weird metal cap at the end of the now bulging canvas rope. A jet of water suddenly shot out and splashed against the brick wall. The crowd gasped in surprise. This was new magic. Machines pumping and spraying water.

Miohuito turned to the captain. "Perhaps you could help with letting us into the building."

The captain was grinning now over his grizzled beard. "Well, that's more like it. Better than a bunch of tribal fighters, isn't it? Ha, this might actually work." He turned and called out to Xiaobao nearby. "Hey, kid! Have someone go get your master! Might actually be able to save some of his stuff now!"

Xiaobao was relieved, this being the first good thing he had heard all day. "Ok, need to tell Mister Gaoli. Xinfei can you...No, you're still beat up. Shoot, I can't leave, um..." The Islanders were moving their water-shooting pump closer to the warehouse wall. The earthbender secured a place in front of the group and as he planted his feet and thrust up his arms he managed to tear open a hole in the brick so they confront the fire inside, propping up the opening with a crudely constructed stone arch he threw into place with a sign of his hand. The spectating crowd moved in closer to see if they could observe anything within the burning building. Then one of the watchers caught Xiaobao's eye. Xiobao yelled, "Chouyu! What are you doing here?"

The middle-aged dock hand looked like he had not been asleep, and had rather been availing himself of the night before the general traffic of the town carried him to this spot. Chouyu blinked his eyes as if to steady his vision a little more. "Huh? Wha?"

Xiaobao took hold of the man's shoulder. "I don't care. Go wake up Forman Jun Do right now, and then make sure someone heads up to the Middle Ring as quickly as they can! Mister Gaoli has to know this place is on fire. You got that?! I got to make sure no one steals stuff as we carry it out behind those Islander guys."

Chouyu squinted past Xiaobao's expansive shoulder. "You sure those guys are going to let you get in there?"

Xiaobao frowned at him. "Course they are. Fire captain said so and those Islanders built that whole fancy water squirting machine to protect their dock merchandise."

"Them's not who I mean." Chouyu said as he began edging backwards.

Ayika called out softly, "Um, Xiaobao?"

Xiaobao turned back, and realized that the tide of the onlooking crowd had retreated quite a bit to leave their small group isolated and exposed in this newly vacated patch of street-side near the warehouse rows. There was a clear reason for this tidal withdrawal. If in the lower rings the presence of a single city guard could repel people on the street then five Public Safety agents showed the potential to impose a general curfew by their very appearance. The agents had appeared from nowhere as if flung from the earth or dropped from the sky. Their dark robes hid their hands and their round hats hid their eyes, but with a flick of their arms the water-hose machine and all the those working with it were magically slid black out onto the street by cobbles beneath them shifting like a flowing stream. The newly made entrance in the side of the burning warehouse resealed itself in a flurry, brick by precise floating brick.

Mizumi's father was furious, and unlike the fire captain he was not cowed by suddenly finding himself in the presence of the king's secret police. "What is the meaning of this?! We were starting to make headway in there, and now the fire can go back to spreading!" On some invisible cue all the agents save one dashed off around the corners of the warehouse.

The one agent who remained spoke softly yet clearly. "Fire can not be allowed any avenues of escape to threaten the city."

Mister Miohuito focused his anger on this lone target. "Since when does Public Safety attend to structure fires?"

"We were already in the area." The agent raised his head revealing his face and Ayika felt the sudden desire to hide. It was the same man who had investigated Lizhen's death. The man from the school, who had attempted to arrest Miohuito for that same murder. He continued in his soft, calm voice. "We have reason to believe that this may have been arson."

Miohuito was just as surprised. "Inspector Yang! Why...? Of course it is arson! Half of the harbor is talking about seeing boys in university robes running away from here! You know they have been threatening to do things like this!"

The Inspector's head did not move as much as a normal person's and his grey eyes were focused on Miohuito but still Ayika felt some measure of his attention sifting through the crowd in his peripheral. He said, "You and your device were very quick to arrive here. Very quick, and out so late at night. Remarkable civic concern in a land that is not your own."

Miohuito jerked back like he had been slapped. "What are you talking about? I donated the mechanical waterspout for the general defense, so I go with it when it is used. It was either that or donate to the new Exclusion city-god temple. I liked Ambassador Naruhuama enough but the thought of him as a god seems odd to me, even if Sage Huitzlan is so enthusiastic. And of course I am going to head out when I hear the fire bell ringing out from the docks that my business partner's building is on fire! What are you even suggesti-"

He was interrupted by sudden shudders from the smaller buildings on either side of Gaoli's warehouse. Ayika could hear several soft thuds as some of the wet dirt flung up to protect the roofs slid off into the alleys, shifted loose by the vibrations that rattled the walls. Miohuito turned back to the Inspector, his face pale with disbelief. "No, Yang. Wait! You can't just jump to destroying even more buildings than the fire is posed to!"

"Proper protocol is to create a fire-break to ensure there is no chance of a fire escaping containment. The owners will receive recompense in accordance with the registered value of the properties." The Inspector seemed almost bored, oblivious to the chattering waves of astonishment his pronouncement had set into motion in the crowd.

He moved away from the poleaxed Miohuito to pace idly along the edge of the newly condemned Gaoli building, ignoring the smoke that was now piercing up through the eaves in great dark plumes. Yang reached the edge of the alley just as the neighboring building began to collapse, its supports and walls torn out from under it by some hidden Public Safety agent magic. The building seemed to die in slow motion, walls sagging and bursting as they fell inwards into clouds of dust. But then something in the alley attracted the inspector's attention more than Miohuito's furious outraged protests and with a single upheld hand the agent froze this one collapsing corner in place with invisible force. He walked forward directly into the path of the frozen building collapse. Gently, like picking up a wounded bird, Yang bent to grab something off the ground under the levitating rubble. As he walked away the falling masonry recommenced its downward destiny.

Inspector Yang held his prize up to the multidirectional light of the lanterns carried by some of the surrounding crowd and Ayika felt a pit sink in her stomach. It was a red wax-paper box, covered with stamped Fire Nation flames. It rattled with the sound of little sticks.

Inspector Yang said to Miohuito, "Do you recognize these?"

"Hmm? That looks like it is a box of matches."

"Yes. We find this Fire Nation product interesting."

Miohuito threw up his hands in protest. "This is really too much. I will be complaining to Representative Tailang about this second round of unfair accusations! Anyone could have bought such a product. Take one look at the people in this crowd and see that any one of...Mizumi?!"

Mizumi had been trying to hide behind Xinfei and Ayika at the edge of the crowd. However, since Ayika's shadow could only reach so high and Xinfei had all the concealing properties of a lamp pole this proved a fruitless effort. Mizumi's father rushed over and pulled his daughter free of her grasp on Ayika with the desperate energy of a frightened parent. "What are you doing here?" he gasped.

Silent as a cat, Inspector Yang was once again standing behind him. "Yes, what is your daughter doing at this site at this time? Is there somewhere slightly further away you expected her to be?" His gaze took in Ayika and Xinfei. "Mister Miohuito, you have been surprisingly on hand for two devastating events in as many nights. A murder and an arson. Would you care to offer an explanation?"

Miohuito glared at the uniformed government bender, hate now burning in his eyes. "Why should I bother? The city will have invented their own answer by the morning."

It was true. Even as they spoke Ayika could hear the rising rush of relayed whispers spreading and multiplying through the crowd. The facts were simple enough: a rich foreign merchant and his family, an Islander fire-starting device found on the scene, suspects in a murder! The rumor mill had plenty to work with. Throw in a few as-of-yet not mentioned firebender saboteurs and it had the mark of a grade-A conspiracy. The expressions of curious spectators began to darken as mutters about foreigners and plots began to grumble around them. Ayika grabbed Xinfei and shrank towards Xiaobao.

Miuhuito sensed the same shifting of the tide. He clutched tight at Mizumi's hand. "Come on, we will talk later. We are going back to the Exclusion."

"Father, I-"

"Now! Rishi, gather up the engine and follow behind!" That lone firebender was already on edge and he nodded quickly. The rest of the Islander men looked very uncomfortable at all this but they complied. Miohuito scowled at the impassive Public Safety agent. "I assume that my daughter and I are free to go?"

Inspector Yang bowed his head. "Our powers to detain citizens of the Exclusion are heavily circumscribed."

"Of course they are. Come Mizumi."

Mizumi looked terrified and as she began to move off she reached out her arm to clutch Ayika's hand. She whispered, "Frog well, quarter day" and then she was gone beyond hearing. A crack of splitting brick rang out in the night as the Public Safety earthbenders went to work. With a shuddering rumble Aizhang Gaoli's warehouse collapsed inward into a pile of smoldering rubble. Through cracks in the tumbled masonry a faint orange glow of smothered embers shone in the night while nearby, on the streets and bridges, angry whispers grew and spread.

...

Ayika's arm and leg were still aching with their bruises and abrasions from the Mask fight but she still would have preferred to walk under her own power when they made their getaway from the former site of the warehouse fire. Xinfei and Xiaobao had other ideas. They fell into position on either side of her and almost lifted her off the pavement by her armpits. Ayika would have protested, but these last two days had worn considerably on her reserves of energy and being sandwiched between two much taller men shielded her from the unnerving sight of the Public Safety agents who drifted like silent ghosts of destruction. However, after two blocks this concern grew old.

"All right you two, I can walk fine." Ayika pushed at them with her elbows and then winced in sympathy when Xinfei groaned softly at the impact to his ribs. She had forgotten his bruises from last night. All in all they were a pretty battered bunch. But at least they had managed to learn something.

The trio slowed to a stop in a dark corner of the riverside docks, far from the sight of Public Safety's destructive firebreak. Ayika began, "I saw Ma'er's assistant! Tian! He was working with the masks! I almost had him but then he..." She squeezed the bridge of her nose with two fingers to settle her memories of the chaotic last hour. "But then Ma'er showed up to attack the nationalists. And the assistant said that he tried to stop someone from killing Lizhen. The boy was bringing something to where Ma'er...Or maybe he was betraying Ma'er to the Masks? No, that doesn't..."

"Ayika, enough." Xiaobao said. The young man was nearly always soft-spoken and gentle, creating a deliberate contrast from his muscle-bound exterior. But now he was forceful and commanding as he stared into Ayika's eyes, barely visible in the dark. "You need to stop this investigation game. You are getting yourself in danger."

"What? No!" Ayika cried. "There are so many details, I just need to figure out how to put it together! And those people in the masks, there was something... That strange feeling when they got close, like energy. They weren't benders but they didn't just have some fighting training. I saw the way they moved. Some sort of power."

Xinfei said, "What are you talking about? That leader was just some guy in a bird mask. I was near him and I didn't feel anything other than nervous. And then when they were fighting in the fire, well, I could barely see but I guess even a bender can be pushed back by three fighters if he's choking on smoke."

They had not felt the strangeness she had. They had not noticed the dancing of the flames. Ayika rubbed at her forehead. She was starting to doubt herself now as they walked allng beside the dark river. "The government's gotten sidetracked by finding some way to blame everything on the Fire Nation. Mizumi's father is getting set up as a scapegoat. We're the only ones looking into Ma'er and the Masks! Someone ordered Lizhen killed and they are still getting away with it!"

"And you've been seen by Public Safety at two crime scenes in two nights, and with suspicious Islanders." Now Xiaobao was pleading, "Ay, you know they need a lot less than that to condemn some kid from the Bed. You need to lie low."

"But, but..." Ayika began, but she knew Xiaobao was not going to budge. She breathed out. "Fine, but I need to meet up with Mizumi tomorrow so I can tell her it's over. She's so determined, she is going to keep pushing the more they sling dirt on her father."

Xinfei suddenly spoke. "Are we sure that she's right about that?"

"What?"

Xinfei scuffed his sandal against the barely visible wharf-street stones. "I'm just saying I haven't exactly heard anything that says this Mister Miohuito didn't have something to do with your teacher's death."

Ayika exhaled a sharp laugh. "The great Xinfei Bao suddenly believes everything Public Safety says. What new world is this?"

Xinfei was defensive at being dismissed so easily. "Hey, I'm just saying. That earthbending attack-gardener gave something to Lizhen and the professor suddenly gets very nervous, like maybe people he used to be all in love with suddenly don't look so great. Then he's killed, the package disappears and Miohuito is found right outside the building. Powerful people are viciously attacking the nationalists. Maybe Lizhen figured out he was on the wrong side. Mizumi never did give us an explanation for why her father was lurking around in the dark outside the school like that."

"That's ridiculous!" Ayika found herself getting angry. "There's no proof of all that! The killer was wearing a mask! Miohuito is not one of the nationalists!"

He threw up his arms. "Yeah, there isn't any proof he's innocent either! Maybe Lizhen was cooperating with the Fire Nation on something dangerous and the Masks took him out. Maybe both sides are wearing masks! I don't know, and neither do you! I'm just saying that Miohuito is not automatically innocent just because Mizumi's your new favorite person!"

Ayika found her hand clenching into a fist as Xinfei loomed over her, but she managed to turn herself away from him and fold her arms below her chest. She knew in her gut that Lizhen's killer was connected to the masked fighters she had seen tonight by something more than the fact of hiding his face, even if she could not articulate how she kew. "I thought you might be a little more sympathetic to someone trying to clear the name of their unjustly accused father."

Xinfei showed no reaction to this below-the-belt hit. "Yeah, well Dad was actually trying to protect us normal people, not sell them out to foreigners! That's a big freaking difference! Now you're trying to help some foreign girl and Maolin and I are out of a job because that Ma'er made our workplace burn down while attacking those Masks!" Still it was dark, and Ayika could not make out his face well if there was a reaction. She might have heard his voice catch.

Ayika forced him to take a step back, moving in close as she said, "So what? You want to give up?!"

He put his hands on her shoulders but she shook him off. Xinfei said, "No, just do it our way. Quiet, figure out what is really going on. And no getting all wrapped up with Miss Fire Nation."

Xiaobao interjected into their argument, "Hey, you just promised to give all this dangerous stuff a break. Mom is not in shape for you to be disappearing again."

"Oh, mom's not in shape for anything." Xinfei waved his arm dismissively which just made his brother angrier.

Ayika was so tired. They all were. Tired and angry. Her head felt thick. All day her balance had been out of kilt, her heart pounding at the wrong times, strange feelings. Now the agitation was spreading to the Bao brothers. She needed to say something, somehow reel this crisis back. But it was late and she did not know if she had gotten a single hour's sleep last night. Her grandmother had said that tired people crept closer to the spirit world, and spirits could not contain their emotions since they were pure mind. Well, right about now Ayika was seeing strange shapes flitting in the corner of her sight and felt like she was about half an hour from leaving her body entirely. Of course, Grandmother also said that proximity to death brought people closer to the spirit world so maybe she should take it a little easier right now to prevent any unscheduled trips beyond this life. In other words, Ayika was dead tired.

"Let's just go home," she said, her voice once more calm and without antagonism. "It's too late." Above, the gibbous moon shone down through a plume of dust and smoke. Somewhere out in the night, benders fought masks while governments of earth and fire grew closer to conflict. Here, three young people made their way along the riverside back towards their beds down beneath the waterline.

...

(Author's Note: I welcome and encourage any any all communication whether it is a review, criticism, a question, or just unsorted brainstorming. Even if it is telling me that I have made some massive error of writing judgement. I reply to all within 24 hours)


	17. Well

...

The next morning was warm and bright. Above, the light of the sun was subtly tempered by the occasional intercession of small cloud wisps high in the blue sky. The last fragments of summer hung in the still air but autumn seeped up from the stones below and whispered in cool breaths of air that stirred across the many water channels in Kuang Harbor. These canals threaded their way everywhere across this town, a loosely connected appendage of the Impenetrable City. It was almost enough to make one forget about politics but like the sparkling, sun-speckled surface of the dirty canals, foul currents ran strong beneath.

Gold Toad Square was a landmark in the old quarter of the harbor town. Long ago, Ayika had determined that you could always tell the moneyed parts of the City by what color they were. Not the shining gold of gilt-painted decoration or the shimmer of dyed silk, but the living green of trees and other plants growing only for ornamentation, not consumption. Though Kuang Harbor was generally compared unfavorably to even the lower ring of the City, in these few old blocks, as Ayika followed a narrow path across a simple bridge of a few planks nailed together where alley abruptly switched sides of this thin waterway, she walked under willows.

As Ayika continued on the edge of that deep channel, to her right the sounds of men enjoying a late breakfast filtered over the water from the open rear balcony of a restaurant hung with paper lanterns. The windowsills held potted bushes dotted with flowers. Ahead, the path edged between the watercourse below and another row of buildings above, until a few narrow brick steps led the way up to intersect the foot of a stone bridge that vaulted over and past this little rivulet.

Ayika climbed those steps up onto a more formal street, ducking her head to brush past a trestle that sprung out from a house to support some flowering vine. She turned to walk up and over the bridge but had to lean against the stone pilings when two ladies in fancy robes and the sweating hireman pushing them crested the top. The women were sitting on flat seats on either side of of the one large wheel that held up the wheelbarrow-like conveyance. As Ayika watched, one lady lay her arm across the wheel's housing that to whisper something to her companion on the other side as the porter strained to ensure that gravity did not now send them both rolling down the bridge out of his grasp. Her companion laughed musically, covering her mouth with the painted fan she carried. Then they were rolled past and Ayika was free to walk alone over into the tree-shaded stone of Gold Toad Square.

She supposed that this was where she was to meet Mizumi. Though the other girl's command of the Kingdom's language sometimes faltered at inopportune times, the "Frog Well" message had to refer to the waist-high carved wall that surrounded a deep hole at the center of this square. Or she was supposed to be seeking out particularly healthy amphibians but this place seemed a more consistent landmark. In any case the midpoint between dawn and noon would be approaching soon and Mizumi would be forced to either appear or remain absent. Ayika leaned back against one of the well's snarling marble beast heads whose weathered faces decorated the four corners.

The normal traffic of the city continued along the beside white walled buildings under their dark tiles that were speckled with tufts of grass growing in pockets of air-delivered dust. A man pushed a handcart laden with long wooden planks, a precious commodity in the voracious city. An old woman was arguing loudly with a shopkeeper over the price of the eggs she was trying to sell from the large stack of straw-packed trays bundled together on her back. Elsewhere a boy was listlessly ladling from a bucket of water to wet the street in front of his father's small kitchen.

No one came near Ayika's waiting place, and she did not expect them to. At some point in the far past the well had helped sate the thirst of this neighborhood but Ayika suspected that since the government added the nearby drainage channel drinking a cup from these depths would count as willful self-harm. Nowadays water came piped into fountains. Still, the well's housing was pretty and the folktales surrounding it meant the local shopkeepers would not hear of filling it in.

Ayika had heard from her grandmother that a great spirit-toad was said to live in such wells. The story told in the city was that the toad was a canny spirit and took pride in arranging meeting and contacts between humans and spirits. For his services he was rewarded and soon the toad came to possess quite a pile of riches. However, his greed grew in equal measure and one day as he was sitting down in his damp well where he stored his treasure a crane came and perched above. The crane held in his beak a brilliant piece of jade, more beautiful than any the toad had ever seen before. At once its subtle hues seized his heart. So he called out to the crane.

"That jade is beautiful! I am Golden Toad who can arrange any service! Tell me your heart's desire and I will make it happen in exchange for that treasure."

The crane looked down the well and said to the toad. "I am very tired and hungry for I have just come a great distance from the mountains where the mines are. Truly the journey was difficult for I have been carrying not just one jade, but three. " At this he revealed each of his feet also held a piece of jade, equal or surpassing the first in their beauty.

The toad was consumed with desire. "For such treasures I could get you a palace under the sea. I could engage you to the East Wind's daughter. Name what you want and you shall have it!"

The crane eyed the toad down the well, sitting half in the water on his pile of hoarded coins and silver bars. The crane said, "I am very hungry, and one food has been on my mind all throughout my long journey from the mountains; toad legs. Give me one of your legs to eat and I will fly off happy, leaving this jade treasure here for you."

The Gold Toad thought quickly. He was not an active spirit, having always preferred to sit still and make others come to him. With such a precious stone in his possession he could easily hire someone to help him with any inconvenience that might arise from having three limbs. So he thrust his arm into the air and said to the Crane, "All right, deal. Here, come take it."

The crane looked down at the toad's proffered forelimb. "Tasty, I am sure. But I am very hungry and your hind legs look so much more powerful. Give me one of them and I shall pay you double, leaving two jades here at on the lip of your well."

By now Toad did not even think. He had to have those jades. "Deal!" he shouted, and the crane swooped down to pluck off his thick and strong hind-leg, before flying off into the sky leaving two shining jades on the edge of the well.

For a moment the Golden Toad sat staring up at his new treasures in perfect contentment despite the pain of his missing leg. But when he gathered himself up to leap out of the well and collect them he discovered that with only one back leg he could not reach the rim. He tried again and again, each time rising a little higher but still not near the necessary distance. It was then that a poor human laborer came staggering up to the well hoping for a refreshing drink after working in the hot sun. Instead he found two precious jade treasures sitting unclaimed on the stones. He let out thankful prayers to heaven and gathered them up, deaf to hear the shouts and threats of the spirit toad at the bottom of the well. He could not hear or perceive anything about the spirit for he was not a priest or a shaman and only an ordinary man. The Golden Toad raged and morned but he did not learn his lesson and to this day wealth still flows to him. Some may drop into the hands of those around his consecrated homes.

Grandmother had told the story slightly differently. "Jumping?" She spat, coughing heavily over her pipe. "You ever seen a toad that couldn't climb? Canny bastard got all three Jades for that leg and then gave two away hoping to attract the Moon's love. The Moon loves generosity and she's all that sap sees sitting at the bottom of his dark well. She loves those who are generous and kind so he thought to make a grand gift to prove his worthiness of her love. But he could not bare to give up that last jade so the Moon looked away, knowing he did not truly care about the people. Lesson is you can't half do a thing like love. Also birds carry gems, I guess."

Time was wearing on and it looked like Ayika was going to as alone as the toad spirit. Mizumi was not coming. Perhaps it was for the better, she had promised Xiaobao that she would give up taking risks to discover who had killed Professor Lizhen. Mizumi and her father had the whole Fire Nation Trade Mission defending them. They would be fine.

She on the other hand was out of a job and looking at going home to a mother who was intent on marrying her off to some boy as soon as humanly possible. This after she had only just managed to convince her mother that she was not going to marry either of the Bao brothers. Love was not a concern in her mother's eyes, if Ayika would ever even know what love was like. She leaned back against the well and said, "At least you get to see your love at night, Mister Toad."

Ayika's ears pricked up to hear a sound different from the rest of the normal bustle of the living city. A shifting sound, and it seemed like it was coming from below her. She slowly turned and planted her hands on the lip of the well. Everything looked normal down there in the shadow. Several meters below she could see the faint shimmer that signaled dark water amid dark stones. Or could she? Ayika leaned closer. Her eyes were adjusted to the bright sun but amid the colored blotches that swam in her vision it looked like there was something else down there. Something man-sized and wet like a section of collapsed wall. A collapse that looked like it was moving.

Something smacked Ayika lightly on the bottom and she yelped, almost pitching forward into the well herself. Hands grabbed at her waist but she spun around on her own ready to levy blistering reprobation on whatever lecher had dared to touch her, only to see an incredibly embarrassed Mizumi peaking through her fingers as she covered her face trying to hide suppressed laughter.

Ayika took a deep breath, trying to appear calm and collected. "And just what exactly was that?"

"I..." Mizumi began, biting her lip to hold in her giggles. "I am sorry. When I was at my old school on Kasai Island my friends and I would...I am very sorry. I apologize." She made fists at her side and bowed the the sharp military style of the Fire Nation.

Ayika put her hands on hips in mock reproach, "Well, I guess that kind of stuff explains some of the rumors about Islander girls." When Mizumi moved to begin another apology, Ayika waved her off. "Never mind, you just surprised me is all. I was just..." She glanced back down the well. Now her eyes were adjusted and she could clearly see it was empty. One of these days she needed to get a decent night's sleep. "...nothing. Just waiting for you. Wait, why are you dressed like that?"

"To continue the investigation!"

Mizumi was back in her school uniform, everything perfectly to code. She was even wearing kingdom style shoes that half the native students at the school would not risk since Fire Nation inspired fashion were so popular among the youth in the central rings. Mizumi began to explain her thinking. "Well, chasing leads of people who were around the school with Teacher Lizhen that day seems to have led nowhere good. Or rather it has led to too many suspect people and too many burning buildings. We are no closer to finding a leader. I thought we should start at the other end, with finding out more about the teacher himself, who he had quarrels with. At the school." She cocked her hip to the side and gestured to her clothes. "Headmaster Gang wants me to stay home for a while but I think I would not attract much attention in the halls as long as I am in uniform. We will only be there a short time and very few students know me yet."

But all of them would recognize you instantly, Ayika thought. Even if you weren't foreign, you do catch the eye. But she did not say that. In truth, Mizumi's plan sounded like a reasonable compromise to get around her promise to Xiaobao. This was practically just her going to work. It hardly constituted exposing herself to danger. And besides, Mizumi had sounded wistful when she spoke of her friends back in the Fire Nation. It would be cruel to abandon her here in a city that was strange to her.

"All right then," Ayika said. "Lets go"

...

The vaulted pillars supporting the earthbender tram-chutes were a constant landmark in every ring of the City. They connected its far-flung neighborhoods like stony thread stitching a fabric of brick and tile. Even outside the city wall their stretched out their thin strings into the countryside, rolling past orchards and fields out into the hills and plains of the vast encircled land, returning laden with the food to feed unknown millions mouths. Out in the wide reaches of the enclosed farm country the tram-line and its storage depots might be the only sign a farm worker ever saw that they in fact lived within the bounds of the City's land for the outer wall and the city wall were both hidden by the hazy distance or intervening mountains. The only riders those farmers would see were soldiers bound for camps clinging to the side of the outer wall, farm owners come to survey land, or tax collectors come to confirm that the numbers in their ledgers matched the numbers that lived and toiled in the country. Residents of the harbor town at least had the privilege of riding their tram, of entering the vast city that they supported with their labor.

The two girls crested the last set of stairs up to the Kuang Harbor tram station that rose up from the streets to meet that precious ribbon. Ayika breathed a sigh of relief as Mizumi came up behind her. The tram she had hoped to catch was still waiting. Betond the railings at the edge of the marbled station floor the varied roofs of the town stretched over its lace of canals and aqueducts from the dark bank of the river to where they spread into the endless fields beyond. The tiled eaves and peaks were decorated with tiny clay statues and ornaments, entreating the spirits in blind and mostly ignorant supplication.

Ayika turned to Mizumi, conscious of the fact that the foreign girl was not yet fully accustomed to life in the City and thus might be disorientated by the morning rush of people intent on getting on this tram to the Craftsman's Gate. "Ah, it's ok, the third morning tram hasn't boarded yet so we'll be able to squeeze in as soon as the guards open the doors."

"Squeeze in?" Mizumi suddenly had a twinkle in her eye. "My friend Ayika, last time you led me around the streets. Today is my turn."

With that she began walking straight over to the tram stop where the common class of people were still piling up outside, waiting to be let in to the rear. However, with a simple flash of Mizumi's gold embossed passport the doors to the Nobles Car were opened for her. Ayika supposed that when it came to the tram system nobility was something you could buy. Such a privilege apparently also included guests as Mizumi waved at her to come along. The forward car was completely empty and despite the entire tram being built as a single unit this space seemed newer than the passenger compartment where Ayika normally rode. Mizumi patted a seat at her side and Ayika gently lowered herself onto the sculpted and cushioned bench, remembering just a few days ago when she had not even been allowed to fit her entire body inside the tram walls.

As the car began to fill with a few other rich and expansive personages Mizumi gestured around her. "I still have difficulty getting used to this system you have here. Our benders back in the Nation would not be able to create something like this, and the Earth Kingdom has had it for hundreds of years. Of course without it I assume the city would have starved its self to death long ago. Food would rot in the time it took to travel from the farms in to the Inner Rings by traditional means."

Ayika found herself sitting straighter than normal, trying to ignore the looks of an older woman who had countless ornaments hanging from her hair-board and gold rings across her fingers. Ayika replied, "I'd thought everyone said the Fire Nation was much better than us when it came to machines and such. You really don't have anything like this?" She knew that other towns across the world were not as big as the Impenetrable City, but after living here all her life she had difficulty imagining what that would look like.

"Oh, of course we have trains now, they just are not powered by benders. We use coal and steam. What is impressive is how long ago they managed it here. These cars are basically a sheet of stone for bending on wheels with a compartment built on top. " Mizumi was staring forward into the front wall of the car as if she could see through it and out into all the endless kilometers of tram roads. "Of course it takes at least one bender to power each of these trams so it is very inefficient these days, but the infrastructure is all there. That is why my father is so exited for the chance to get a railroad contract from the King. Just lay the rails on the existing elevated lines and this city alone might eclipse all the track distance in the Nation! A thousand benders could be freed to do other jobs!"

There was the telltale shake which indicated the earthbenders had stepped into their positions at the back of the vehicle. The noble compartment only held less than a quarter of the people that there were seats for, let alone standing room, but none the less the doors were closed, just as a few feet behind the dividing wall the commoners were being helpfully shoved in by guards to better fill the space. Then the benders began their cycle of stances and motions that sent the tram of to its rattling, grinding start.

Mizumi squeezed her eyes shut at the tram's shaking. She grimaced as her teeth knocked against each other. "I take back every admiring thing I said. I love modern shock absorbers. History can be damned."

Ayika laughed, and could not bring herself to care what the rich woman across the car thought. They were riding above the roofs and Mizumi had ten thousand questions about the city that Ayika could answer. It was a good morning.

...


	18. Ally

...

Despite the supposedly increased security around the Impenetrable City Legacy School for Young Ladies, Mizumi and Ayika managed to walk through the front gates two hours after the start of classes without a single comment. The two porter boys with clubs who Headmaster Gang had stationed in front of the gate saw a girl in the student uniform and that was enough for them. Honestly, Ayika felt like reporting their laziness to Mrs Jiangsu until she remembered she didn't currently work here.

The city guards had cleared out the makeshift storeroom where they had piled professor Lizhen's papers after the fire. All of it must have been taken somewhere underground to the Public Safety's secret headquarters. Ayika knew that this had been the likely outcome but had somehow held out hope that for once the slow speed of city bureaucracy would have worked in her favor and give them a chance to sift through some of the evidence before it was collected. Mizumi was still new to the school building so she was looking around as if she was not even sure that this was the same room where they had been imprisoned while the guards beat Xinfei. When Ayika shook her head Mizumi followed her back out.

Together they crept up the stairs to the second floor. Mizumi in her school uniform did not look out of place but Ayika would have some explaining to do if they were caught. Fortunately, the only sign of life they heard was from one distant classroom where a teacher could be heard droning, punctuated now and then by chorused replies from the students. Ayika smoothly eased open the door to Lizhen's office and gestured for Mizumi to enter. Once they were both inside, she turned and closed the door until it registered a final faint 'clunk'.

"All right, we do not know what we are looking for, but for some hint of what Lizhen was involved in before his death," Mizumi said though she did not sound hopeful.

Ayika had to agree. There was very little left after the guards had been through here. The bookcase was now empty and the partially burned desk had been shoved over to one wall so someone could start to scrub at the blackened area the oil-fire had scorched into the floor. However, these efforts had been abandoned at the half-way stage. Ayika could not blame whatever servant had gotten the cleaning job only to desert it. Everyone knew that ghosts had power until the funeral was finished and if normal practice was followed then Lizhen would not be at peace until tomorrow. Until those rights were performed, ghosts were known to linger in the place of their death, particularly if their death was violent. A ghost could effect emotions to incite discord and could even attract troublesome spirits. Ayika shivered at the thought.

Desperate to think of something else she joined Mizumi over against the shelf-covered display wall whose assorted knickknacks constituted most of what had been left undisturbed in this office. Mizumi was currently inspecting a metal mirror set in a red lacquered wooden frame carved with dragons.

"This is a Fire Nation spirit mirror," she said, confused and curious. "You set them pointing out at the four corners of a funeral to keep the spirit world away until the burning is complete. Why would a Kingdom teacher have this? And this is a ghost bell." She pointed at a small metal sphere on a light wood handle.

Ayika joined her. "When the professor was at the university he studied something to do with the temples of the different cultures." A sad smile stole across her face as she brushed her hand past a weathered medallion with engraved with three spirals and over to a rounded stone carved with a toothy mouth. "Over here he has a shark-charm weight stone. For when you sink the body." Mizumi was looking at her oddly. "Water Tribe custom."

The other girl shrugged. "It is all slightly morbid but I do not think any of this is going to give us a hint as to who arranged for his death." Mizumi grabbed a stack of large painted cards. "I mean, these appear to be sketched illustrations of many kinds of tribal totems. At least I think that they are tribal. They are covered in teeth and fur and vines and such. How did he go from this to being involved in politics?"

Ayika gazed around the room that had been burned then ransacked. She could not bring herself to look at the corner where she had found the professor lying so still, but even as her eyes skipped over it she shivered again. The air seemed oppressively stuffy. To ease her mind she spoke of the first thing that came to mind. "I heard him talking to one of his classes once. Lizhen said while spirits do not usually interact with humans, each region and culture has their own spiritual allies that have learned to live in its shadows and secluded corners. They've been shaped by the thoughts and rituals of mankind, just as they shape us. What he was talking about is when one nation begins to mix with another. Some people didn't like what he had to say about that."

Mizumi nodded. "Yes, I have heard about that sort of event back in the Nation. The spirits of the dominant culture drive out those that are less securely allied with their humans. Loss of spirits causes harm to the psyche of the population and leaves them vulnerable to outside influence. My teachers used the examples of Zhao's rogue north fleet and Sozin's victory at Taku."

Ayika wrinkled her nose. "That's not exactly what Professor Lizhen was saying. He was insisting that spirits don't like being organized into factions. That the spiritual conflict only happened if the humans wanted it to. He said that even then it takes a great deal of effort to rouse the spirit world." It felt good be talking about the professor's theories in his room. It made her think she could feel him smiling on her. As soon as he was safely buried, she could make offerings to his soul without accidentally empowering his ghost. She heard the suggestion of murmured speech behind her.

She turned back to find out what Mizumi had said. "What was that?"

Mizumi looked up from the painted card she was looking at. "Huh? I was not... This card among the pictures of totems has a portrait of a woman. She looks tribal, maybe the idols were hers?"

Ayika moved over to take a look. The small card of stiff paper was deftly painted, the features of the woman laid down with thin, precise lines. Her look was mysterious and dangerous while still managing to appear coy and enticing. The painter had included many small bangles hanging in her braided hair. "She doesn't look like she's of the kingdoms, but she's also not from the North. She could be of one of the lost tribes from the hot lands, or some mixed-blood maybe. Whatever she was she's beautiful. I wonder how he knew her?" As she held the card she knew in her heart that this woman had sat in Lizhen's. The hairs on the back of her neck were prickling. Again Mizumi whispered just below her hearing.

Ayika looked up. "What?"

Mizumi was confused. "What?"

"You just whispered something."

"No, I did not."

"I just heard you-"

Mizumi interrupted, putting a finger over Ayika's lips. "No, wait! I hear something now!"

It took Ayika a moment to locate the sound Mizumi was talking about but eventually she recognized the faint muffled sound of heavy uneven breathing. There was no one else other than the two of them in the office but someone was nearby.

This noise was not coming from inside this room, but as Ayika spied the open window she thought she might know the place. She motioned to Mizumi and together they silently and slowly crept out the door. Ayika inched down the hall to the classroom adjacent to Lizhen's office. No teacher was using it today but there was someone hiding there and this time it would not be Mizumi. They took their stations on opposite sides of the door and nodded before quickly opening the door. To Ayika's relief there was only one person inside eliminating some of the more salacious explanations for heavy breathing that had occurred to her. In fact it was someone Ayika knew, doing something she would not have expected of them.

Mizumi gave voice to the thought. "Lili Gaoli? Are you crying?"

The ever fashion-conscious student tried to shield her face when the door opened but her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks shone with a telltale moisture, however much she tried to hurriedly blot it.

Lili made an effort to regain her normal composure, "What are..." her voice caught. She breathed in and tried again. "What are you doing here fire girl? I thought you had the sense to stay gone once you saw all the trouble your presence caused."

Mizumi smirked, easily falling back into the pattern of verbal sparring. "You can not get rid of me that easily. What is the matter with you, did someone you and your little fashion posse try to bully finally fight back?"

"Shut up. I don't need to talk to you. And what are you doing with one of the maids out of uniform?"

Ayika was impressed that Lili had recognized her. She would have put Miss Gaoli down as one of those wealthy people who could never even see the faces of those who served them, only their color-coded outfits. Then again, critiquing everyone around her couldn't fit with total self absorption. In any case, this was an opportunity to finally show that girl that not everyone was in love with her lovely peppy presumption. Ayika could not be fired twice. "Why were you crying? I heard that your father's warehouse burnt down last night. You afraid papi lost enough money that he isn't going to be able to afford you a new set of silk robes for each festival like last year?"

Lili turned her tearstained eyes on Ayika and she was surprised to anger and revulsion in them. "How dare you! You ungracious little... Professor Lizhen was murdered in this very building! How could you think that I would be worried about something so petty! I'm sure someone like you can just shrug off the death of a great man like that but I-!"

"Hey!" Mizumi interrupted, full of indignation. "Do not talk to Ayika like that! As far as I can tell, she is the only one in this whole city who is actually working towards finding justice for the teacher! I have seen more morality from her than any of you other kingdomers!"

Ayika's head was spinning. Lili Gaoli was showing real human emotion and concern for others. To Ayika's side, Mizumi was loudly defending her and declaring her virtues in a voice that might actually be loud enough to risk them being discovered. Ayika made a mouth shutting hand sign to Mizumi to get her to lower the volume of her voice but since the Islander mouthed back the word "Bird?" in confusion something must have gotten lost in translation.

Luckily, Lili had seen none of this exchange as she'd taken this interregnum as a chance to dab her eyes with her lace kerchief again. She was now muttering instead of yelling, always in the habit of having an audience. "'Mizumi, I could believe that she is. Ugh, you didn't hear what the headmaster said yesterday. 'We are are so very fortunate that the Public Safety Authority has taken up the investigation'. Like that's supposed to reassure us. Everyone's already heard that they are just blaming it on the closest Islander they could find to the crime scene. Which in this case was unfortunately your father."

Ayika blinked in surprise. "Wait, you don't believe that Mister Miohuito had anything to do with it?"

Lili gave her a pitying look. "Tetzamatl Miohuito is my father's best trading partner. I've been hearing all about him and his precious genius daughter for years. The government's accusation doesn't make one bit of sense." It was now Mizumi's turn to be surprised. Lili turned to her and gave a bitter half smile. "Oh yes, I know you Mizumi. Your father was always bragging about you in his letters, but I guess mine didn't bother to mention me. My father always says women don't have a place in business, at least as long as it's in his own family. " She suddenly realized just how much personal information she had been sharing and blinked rapidly, searching for another topic. "Wait, you said you were doing something about investigating Professor Lizhen? What did you mean by that?"

The question was addressed to Mizumi, Lili not yet being comfortable addressing a servant of the school, but since Mizumi appeared involved in processing that sudden mass of abruptly disclosed personal information Ayika took to responding. "There were clues that the guards weren't interested in following. People they weren't looking for. Miss Mizumi and I ran into each other searching after them out in the city. You see, I was the one who..." Here her voice surprised her by catching before she could explain her connection to the case. "...I was there in the office when... when Lizhen...he..." Ayika's voice betrayed her, and exposed weakness in front of Lili Gaoli. Ayika looked down at the floor, her stomach filling with frustration.

Suddenly smooth hands grasped her own. "Oh, you poor thing!" Ayika looked up into Lili's eyes in surprise and Lili herself looked slightly surprised with the speed she had leapt out of her seat to console a servant. She took a step back as she released Ayika's hands and tried to smile while still looking mortified at grabbing a servant. "I suppose that those manners lessons have been drilled fairly deep into me. My apologies, um, Aye'yakya was it?" Here something occurred to her and she suddenly looked excited. "Hmm, so you are attempting to conduct your own independent investigation. Bold. But wait, if you were in the office then you saw who-!"

Ayika shook her head and Mizumi spoke up to give her a moment more to regain composure. "Masks. The killer was wearing a mask. Apparently many people are doing so in this city these days. Ayika can not be sure who it was even if she were to see them again. Teacher Lizhen was fearing something or someone the day he died. We came here to see if there were any clues left in the teacher's office but your Public Safety Agency appears to have taken everything useful away."

Ayika had control of herself again and she waved away a kerchief that Lili reflexively offered her. "It's like someone's wiping away every trace of his life. All that's left in his office is a few religious icons from the Islands and the Tribes while outside people are driving the kingdom the the foreigners even farther apart. Everyone's forgetting who Lizhen was and what he worked for."

In a flash Lili turned analytical. "You want to know who might be an enemy of the professor. Well, there is the funeral." A thought occurred to her. "Are you two going to the ceremony? It's tomorrow in the Underpit and my family is going. If you are looking for people who might know things about Professor Lizhen then that's the place I would start."

Ayika could not help but laugh, "Go to the funeral? Are you kidding?" She gestured to her face. "There's no way they'd let me into the Underking's Pit and I doubt Islanders are allowed..." She stopped. "Wait. You aren't related to the professor. How'd you get invited to the funeral?"

Lili waved a hand while fluttering her fingers to say this matter was the simplest thing in the world. "My father's printing subsidiary published Professer Lizhen's last book, so he was a family friend. Truth be told I think friends were all the professor had. There's no family that I am aware of." She was staring out into the vacant distance with such quiet revery that Ayika jumped when she suddenly clapped her hands together. "Well, that settles it. Mizumi, you and her will come as my guests! We will be able to get to the bottom of his death together. As you said, someone has to. Oh, I have always wanted to do something like this! At the funeral I'll help by pointing out anyone who might know things. This will be so exciting!" Both her approval of Ayika's actions and her desire to help seemed genuine. The change was disconcerting. However, Lili instantly assuming everyone would obey her absolutely did provided some comfortable familiarity.

It seemed that Lili had already attached herself to this investigation with a speed that left Mizumi feeling unseated. The girl who had been so nasty to them before seemed to completely replaced that attitude with sincere desire to join in. All Mizumi could do was stammer, "But what about the restrictions that Ayika mentioned for the burial pit?"

Lili rolled her eyes. "With how much money my father gave to the priests last year I doubt it will be a problem. Besides, as long as you look the part, people will let you walk in most anywhere. Which being said, I will need to get you two suitable outfits. Mizumi, I doubt that you have any Kingdom style funeral garments, and of course whatever the serving girl has would be completely..." To her credit Lili managed to catch herself when Mizumi's brow furrowed at these comments. Recovering quickly she said, "...would probably include tribal patterns that might draw unnecessary attention at such a traditional function." Inwardly, Ayika had to faintly applaud the speed of this course correction.

In fact, Lili seemed to only be gaining energy and determination. Ayika and Mizumi found themselves unconsciously creeping nearer together for support as their newly self-assigned companion paced back and forth and chattered speculation about what hair ornaments were appropriate for murder investigations. Mizumi shivered at the realization that Lili Gaoli had apparently decided to be her friend. Ayika was perfectly fine with the girl mostly ignoring her.

Now, Lili had never actually asked for them to accept her help but at this point Ayika was ready to let that go too. The funeral was the best lead they had open to them at this point and without Lili they would never be able to find their way in. She met eyes with Mizuni and smiled with excitement of actually receiving eager support, even if it was from Lili Gaoli. Professor Lizhen had more friends than Ayika had thought. They had an open path before them and one more member of their little squad. The odds were improving.

They made arrangements to meet the next day at Lili's house in the Middle Ring, or rather Lili announced the plan to Mizumi while Ayika stood there too. Ma'er and the Masks were still out there, lurking somewhere in the teeming and unending city, but if Ayika could figure out Lizhen's connection to them then she knew she could figure it out. She looked back in the direction of Lizhen's office one room over and once again felt a shiver of excitement across the back of her neck. For one moment the terror of the last two nights felt far away.

...


	19. Insurance

...

Xinfei sat on a large spool of line next to his brother on the waterfront as the assembled harbor workers of Gaoli Industries and Imports waited in the late morning light. They silently watched their employer survey the burned rubble that remained of his main shipping warehouse and those buildings beside it. As the group waited for the verdict Xinfei could hear the faint gurgling of the Kuang river flowing under the piers and the clangs and yells from the rest of the long line of occupied ship-births that stretched from the Bed to the Exclusion. Many of the men were looking at their calloused hands in their laps. This was the first idle morning in a long while and they could feel the phantom sensation of the rough fibers of the ropes they should be hauling. There was anxiety in that group of normally unflappable men. Many a merchant had been ruined by a loss of much less product and property and their jobs had likely burnt last night with the warehouse.

"Well, those government boys sure were thorough, weren't they?" Mister Gaoli said, whistling at the blackened heap.

Aizhang Gaoli was not from a noble family. In fact, it was rumored that his ancestors had been farmers in the encircled lands north of Lake Laogai before they were granted citizenship to the city. However, in the last few generations the Gaolis had risen high by being daring in trade during wartime and this current Gaoli patriarch had risen those fortunes still higher by partnering with newly permitted Fire Nation merchants who needed domestic partners for approved access to Impenetrable City markets. It was also rumored that some of these contracts had been signed before the war was actually over though much quieter tones were used when discussing those theories.

Gaoli was a man of some girth who chose to accentuate this figure of plenty with a broad yellow sash tied across his belly over the high quality yet unadorned robes he wore. His public image was one of a generous and canny businessman which had allowed him to be a prominent figure among the pro-trade reformist faction of city politics. Yet, no matter how high he rose he was still not of noble blood and was thus forever shut out of the city's inner ring. He had no right to request meeting with the King and Headmaster Gang's school was the best he could do for his daughters' education. Now he stood before a pile of burned rubble.

Foreman Jun Do held his round straw hat in his gnarled hands, the scar on his lower lip twitching as he planned to speak. He cast a nervous glance at the three black-shirted clerks who had accompanied Gaoli down from the Middle Ring and were now holding small booklets, making notation of everything they saw with sharp precise characters. Like most working men of the city Jun Do regarded this kind abstract accountancy as akin to sorcery and he gave them a wide berth.

"Mister Gaoli," he said. "I got to the site as soon as I could last night, but by the time I heard news the buildings were already coming down." He gestured towards Xinfei who pricked up at this attention. "Young Maolin Bao got on the scene first and he sent word to me. He said that the fire crews and some Exclusion fellows were trying to put out the blaze but Public Safety closed the area before he could arrange to salvage any of the freight." Xinfei stared at his hands again. Of course, they were talking about his older brother. He should have known.

"Our government's ever loving hand to business," Gaoli said with a bitter twist. "I'll bet that was Miohuito trying to stop the fires. He has been going on and on about that new fire engine of his when he's not talking about his railroad project. They forced him away before his team managed to get inside the building?"

Jun Do gestured to Xiaobao to stand up, which he did while looking very embarrassed about talking to the big boss. Xiaobao said, "Yes, sir. They'd just got here when those... I mean when Public Safety showed up."

Gaoli turned to his clerks. "Well, it could be worse. At least our place was the ignition site rather than part of the firebreak. Remind me to send a note of sympathy to Meng and, who was it who owned this side? Yang? Find that out." He breathed in."Yes, it could be worse. We are considerably insured against fire, including arson. I told you those high premium rates were worth it." One of the clerks nodded and made another mysterious mark in his ledger.

Mister Gaoli now turned to Foreman Jun Do and the rest of the dock workers. "Well, we suffered a tragedy last night, but it appears no one was hurt. It will obviously take us a while to get back to full capacity, but we still have another Miohuito ship coming in two days. I'll see what temporary space we can get, but you all will still get pay-time even if we have to unload on the river bank and cart it in! However, for today unfortunately I've got no more inventory for you to move so consider this a feast day."

The workers nodded in approval; this was better than their worst fears. When you are expecting the dissolution of the company and immediate unemployment a day at half-pay was great news indeed. As Gaoli clambered back into his sedan chair hefted by eight men, the dock workers began to congregate around Xiaobao asking more details about the fire and complementing him on trying to save the merchandise. From what Xinfei heard, the city's rumor mill had been working at full capacity since last night. Several longshoremen were willing to offer that they had from reliable sources that Islanders were involved in the disaster. Even those whose pay arose from the import market were not overly fond of the denizens of the Exclusion. Several other men mentioned bad dreams last night which further darkened the mood. Everyone knew that dreams could show that the spirits were roused and angry.

However, people had come to respect Maolin Bao both from knowing his father and knowing the young man himself so Xinfei's brother was able to break the darkness brought on by this sharing of grievances. He admonished the rest for gossiping like canal-men and when another employee mentioned that several people were missing from work in other companies, supposedly from spiritual ailments, Xiaobao offered that they might have come down with the autumn flu a little early. He assured them that the spirits didn't get angry over something as little as one trade company. He even said that if they were really worried about spirits they could pay a visit to the city temples. This got a good laugh; no one trusted the government priests to be able to negotiate with the spirit world these days.

His listeners did not necessarily believe his reassurances but Xiaobao had a strength and sincerity to his voice that made people want to trust him. Xinfei glared at the planks under his feet. Xiaobao was full of strength and charisma but no ambition. He had learned the wrong lesson from Dad's death.

Xinfei had heard enough. He stalked off down the waterfront but his brother caught up in a few long steps. After all, he had the day off now.

Xiaobao came up beside him. "Hey, where are you heading off to? You should be going back to home for resting up with Mom. At least you are getting half pay this time you're not at work."

Xinfei shrugged away. Under his shirt his bruises from the guards had now gone from purple to yellow, though they still hurt whenever anything touched them. "Yeah, half pay while Gaoli gets a fat payout from his insurance. You heard him, he didn't sound that shaken up. Hell, he probably made money on this."

"So what if he did? Do you think anyone else would keep a job open for you with you bunking off half the time? Hell, he's the only reason we got by after Dad-"

"Yeah, I know all right! He's rich enough to save whoever he wants. And we should be lucky to have jobs with half the craftsmen's places shutting down to cheap Islander goods. Ha! That Miohuito even wants to put the royal earthbenders out of business with that metal rail-train. And you saw all that stuff Gaoli had hidden in his wall."

Xiaobao leaned in. "Come on Xinfei, that's none of our business. What is this about? If it's about Ayika I just think she-"

Xinfei turned away. "No, it's...It's not knowing why a single thing in this city is happening! Someone kills a guy right in front of her. Some normal people put on masks and start fighting with a Public Safety Earthbender. Who then runs aways when other Agents show up. And there are Fire Nation everywhere." From somewhere inside him Xinfei found purpose. "Well, I'm going to figure it out no matter how weird Ayika is being. I'll find those university boys again, see what exactly happened last night. I'll have something to tell her when she shows up again."

Xiaobao shook his head, but he was familiar with Xinfei when he got focused on a strategy. And besides, Xiaobao was not used to having time off and was at a loss for how to occupy his time. Most of the other guys had wives or prospective wives or at least some cut-rate sing-song girl who they fancied and who took most of their pay. Xiaobao might as well follow his brother and make sure he didn't manage to stumble into an inferno again. The Kuang Harbor was getting tense these days. As the two brothers made their way over the first bridge Xiaobao saw many people casting dark looks at the red roofed towers of the Exclusion looming over the canals and shops. As much as he denied it to the other dockworkers there was something sinister in the atmosphere.

...

The University boys were easy to find. They were in the same teahouse as before, at the same table, although today they were a little more horizontal than previously. A night of lost sleep did not appear to agree with them. Zhanyi's usually lustrous black hair was plastered to his forehead and he had bags under his eyes. The big guy Chonglong must have dozed off on the table at one point because his ridiculous wispy beard was sticking off to the side at a ninety degree angle from his chin as he furrowed his brow at the light of the sun. Jiang looked a little bit better than the other two, but his death grip on the teapot and his cup indicated that this was only achieved through a carefully regulated intake of strong black tea.

Zhangyi's eyes went wide when he saw Xinfei and his brother walking down the street toward the shop. "Oh sweet emperor of heaven. You're actually alive!"

Xinfei moved his elbows in a shrugging gesture with his hands still in his pockets. "Nice to see you again too."

The student leader rubbed his forehead. "No, I mean... Hey, Chonglong! Jiang! The docks boy is back!"

Jiang shook himself slightly, "Hmm, wha? Oh, hey! It's you."

Chonglong squinted. "We thought you burnt to death."

"Yeah, I gathered. We didn't." Xinfei thought to himself that befriending these people to gain more information might be even more wearisome than he had assumed. And he did need to be careful. He was confident that these guys were not dangerous, but he wasn't certain. Someone had been under that second wave of masks. The bird masked man who'd first fought Ma'er had been deadly. If the nationalists were being taught by such people then it was wise to take care. Even if he was not shaken up and imagining energy or omens like Ayika. Xinfei shook his head slightly, after Ayika grew up listening to her crazy grandmother's stories it was no wonder that she started thinking of auras and creepy feelings when she saw something scary.

"And that is great! The not burning." Zhangyi was slowly building up to his usual levels of charm. He waved the Bao brothers over, gesturing to some empty seats near their table. "I'm sorry we're a little slow on the uptake this morning. It was a hellish night and we did not really...oh, why am I telling you, you two had the same night, um...I am sorry, I forgot your name."

Xinfei slid onto the proffered bench. " 'sokay, I don't remember yours either. I'm Xinfei, this is my brother Maolin."

"Well for us it's Zhangyi Mao, Chonglong Yu, and Jiang Li." The leader said, standing up to welcome Xiaobao in as he approached more cautiously.

The eldest Bao brother took Zhangyi's expansive gesturing to the seats around the table for some kind of greeting and reached over to clasp his forearm tight. "Nice to meet you. Call me Xiaobao."

Zhangyi felt at his arm softly when Xiabao let go of it. He just barely managed to keep himself from wincing. "Wow, you are a big one aren't you?" Something clicked in his memory and he smiled. "And you are the one who let us into the warehouse last night!" The smile caught when he remembered exactly how that evening had ended.

Jiang was even more apologetic. "Yes, sorry about that. As I'm sure you can imagine that is not now how we planned the meeting to go. I am afraid that is the second time our society has been broken up by that earthbender but he didn't set anything on fire last time."

Chonglong thumped his fist against the table. "Well, it will be the last. There were Initiated there last night, at least four of them! They will have gotten that corrupt stooge for sure. I bet they pulled his charred corpse out of the rubble this morning."

Xiaobao spoke up, "Wait, you guys didn't stick around at all once you got out the door?"

The three student protest organizers had the decency to look embarrassed to sit before those who had in fact stayed to pull people out of the fire. Zhangyi put himself into the breech first. "No, unfortunately we only made a swift escape. It was dishonorable but we were surprised by the quick dissolution of events. Next time we well do better, you can count on it."

Jiang muttered to himself, "Yes, next time we'll schedule the liquid courage before the event instead of going to get it right after the disaster." Zhangyi shot him a dark look, but the comment explained some of their behavior this morning. Fear, drink and a sleepless night were a potent combination. No matter what he thought of them Xinfei had to sympathize a little with their current sun-hating condition if only from memory of an incident in his own recent past.

It had been his last birthday and Ayika had tricked him into accompanying her as she stole a bottle of high quality rice-wine from an import shop. Xinfei had been sure they were going to be hauled away for a year of hard labor, but Ayika had managed to waltz right out of the store with the spoils stuffed down her top, leaving him speechless. The rest of the night had been a fantastic blur, during which they had discovered that Ayika was a very cheap drunk who after only two cups was hanging off of Xinfei's shoulder teasing him with an uncouth appraisal of the attributes of every pretty girl who passed by and expounding in lurid detail the imaginary erotic adventures that could transpire if they only knew of his virtues.

Drifting off in memory, a smile had stolen into the corner of Xinfei's lips without his notice. Chonglong however did see and he did not approve of what he perceived as mockery.

"Hey," the big student said. "That fire just finished the job we'd started. That Gaoli guy was a traitorous smuggler, whoring himself out to the Fire Nation for cheap machines to stash in those walls. Machines which would just put more kingdom citizens out of work. We should have been planning to burn the place down from the start."

Zhangyi was suddenly intense, reaching across the table to grab at Xiaobao's wrist to hold his attention. He asked, "Wait, everyone did get out right? Where are the girls who were with you? The prett...the Water Tribe girl and the mixed-blood from the occupied territories?"

Xiaobao was clearly flustered and embarrassed by this strange guy grabbing at him so Xinfei spoke up. "Yeah, they're fine. Ayika got a little banged up but she's fine." However the thought of her ditching him to run off with that Fire Nation girl again today had soured his mood. "Hell, even Mister Gaoli is all right. This morning he came down to look at all the damage and just smiled at how much fire-insurance payout he was going to be getting while all us workers were sitting on our hands on his dock."

Xiaobao frowned at his brother. "Hey, he's still paying us half rate today even though we can't do any work. Be careful what you say about him."

Chonglong threw up his hands. He turned to Zhangyi. "See! This is why all this 'raising consciousness' doesn't work. The schmucks working for those swindlers still defend them even after they see with the proof of their treachery with their own eyes! That's why there was that shakeup in the leadership of our movement. That's why the Initiated are in charge now. The old way of just putting up posters and yelling on street-corners is not enough."

Xiaobao now turned on Chonglong, "Hey, I don't know you, so watch who you call schmucks and swindlers." However, Chonglong was one of the few people large enough to look Xiaobao dead in the eye so he did not flinch.

Xinfei focused his frustration on arguing with his brother. "Hey, come on. You have to admit that there was something weird going on at the docks. Why did Gaoli have foreign machines stuffed in his wall? Machines that apparently his partner Miohuito or someone was lying about being destroyed." He raised a second finger to list another point. "That on top of being partners with Miohuito in the first place. The guy who, I am going to say once again, was caught lurking right outside the school where that Lizhen guy was killed."

"Woah, woah. What?" Jiang interrupted. "Miohuito sounds like a Fire Nation name. What was he doing with Professor Lizhen?"

Zhangyi looked around, searching his memory. "I think I know that name. Miohuito. He's the industrialist leader in the Exclusion who is trying to get the King to agree to a mechanical tram system installation. He had something to do with the teacher's murder?"

Xinfei did not need his brother's angrily raised eyebrow to know that he had unintentionally escalated things here beyond what they had prepared for. He tried to backpedal but his heart was not in it. The Exclusion and what it stood for had begun to grate on his nerves lately. "Well, strictly speaking he was just found acting suspicious near the crime. They didn't really accuse him of anything. Of course that may be because some pointy-bearded big-wig from the Exclusion came to shoo off the Public Safety guys before long."

"That sounds like that might be Fire Nation Trade Representative Tailang." Zhangyi said. "Half the city ministers are in his pocket. The ones who keep calling for the King to crack down on our demonstrations every time we try to say anything. Of course he would show up to help a murderer."

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Lizhang was a pathological supporter of the Fire Nation." Jiang said. "He got kicked out of this post at the University for shamelessly advocating their side. Why would anyone from the Exclusion be a suspect?"

Xiaobao nodded. "That's right. From what I heard, this could easily have been a frame up. I mean, supposedly Lizhen was receiving threats from the bender who broke up your meeting and they found something new he wrote the day of his death about being wrong and driving out foreign spiritual influences, but none of that is actual proof." Even as he said these words, Xinfei could see his brother hearing how they would be taken. In the student protesters, surprise had now been fanned into anger. Xinfei gave his brother a significant look. Not so easy is it? Xiaobo groaned softly, his honesty and forthrightness won him fans on the docks but it made him ill equipped for politics.

Chonglong jabbed his finger in the direction of Xinfei's chest, "That earthbender goon was threatening this Professor? I heard someone last night at that lower ring tavern saying that an Islander had killed a citizen, but I thought it was just drunk talk. This must've been what they were speaking of. See this? This is the kind of stuff the public citizenry needs to know about!"

Jiang shook his head. "If this is true then the Public Safety Authority will have taken over the investigation. They don't appreciate people riling up the public to interfere with their business. No matter what kind of support we get we can't go on the street with torches and slogans against government earthbenders."

Xinfei saw his chance in the topic of needing violent support. "What about the guys in the masks? Those guys on your side? That guy who was leading the meeting fought better than any soldier I ever saw. That's some considerable training right there." Ayika would be ecstatic if he managed to get a solid lead on the people who had freaked her out so badly.

Chonglong frowned. "He's not supposed to know about the Initiated."

Jiang rolled his eyes, taking another deep reenforcing draught from his teacup."Yeah, well he was there and saw them with his own eyes. They took over leadership of the meeting and then started fighting an earthbender. The secret is kind of out." He sighed. "Also, you've been saying their name every two minutes since he arrived."

Zhangyi looked both Xinfei and Xiaobao in the eyes. He seemed to be evaluating them. Then he gave a small smile as if he approved of what he saw. The leader of the students leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly so that the without noticing the Bao brothers leaned in as well. "You're right, comrade, there is power out there. Secret power. The power of our city. Of our culture. Those who wear the masks are charged to fight back, to protect the people. The people of every level." Something in his voice sent excited shivers down Xinfei's back. This was the sound of true belief. Of actual hope for improving things and not just naive trust or the cynical acceptance of a corrupt system that he was used to encountering. Zhangyi straightened up. "We've seen this power. That's why we know we can win."

"And we are never going to even touch one of those masks. Ranked members only. After all our protests and stuff accomplishing a whole lot of nothing we've slid down to the bottom of the hierarchy." Chonglong growled to himself, causing a bit of depression to flit across Zhangyi's face.

Jiang was leaning back in his chair. "I'm not completely convinced that is a bad thing. I joined this movement to fight for the people with my brush, not on the streets with my fists. And did anyone else think that the Initiated were acting odd last night? Things were never so crazy before when Li Feng was leading us."

Xiobao frowned at this. "Wait, what do you mean? Odd?"

Xinfei ignored that line of talk and pushed for any hint that might lead him to names. "Do you know who's been given them? The masks. Were these new people behind the them last night or someone you know?"

Zhangyi spoke up again, allowing his strong voice to help him regain control of the conversation. "Where the symbolic headwear come from is a secret. It's been like this for the last month and a bit. The right to wear the masks is awarded to those who organize notable acts of resistance to the foreign plague. Up to now, our efforts to earn our own recognition have been less than successful." There was some embarrassment in that last sentence. For all their education, these boys were not much older than Xinfei himself. He knew what it felt like to continual have brilliant plans that just never worked because people refused to see what he was actually saying.

Chonglong was riled up. "Well, then now's the time! If that Miohuito fire-dog was connected to the murder of that school teacher then he should be our target! Everyone knows where he's building his precious rail line engines. I say we lead the people against it and really destroy something that really hurts him. That will show him for trying to replace workers with machines!"

Xinfei could not help smiling. He knew many people who had lost their jobs to cheap Fire Nation imports and factory devices. "Now that sounds more like it." He was catching their enthusiasm. These men did not feel powerless and helpless before the overwhelming weight of the city. Before Fire Nation people taking things away from them. Maybe they were not as great fools as he had thought. He did not see his brother looking at him with worried eyes.

The plan to attack Miohuito's project did not sit as well with Zhangyi. Xinfei could see gears turning behind his brow. Zhangyi then looked up and said, "No, traitors before invaders. Chonglong you are right, we should have done more before now. The middle ring merchants are the real problem and last night showed it. It's traitors like that who partner with foreigners and give them permission to steal our money and flood our markets. I have an idea to let them know their free ride is over. We will earn our recognition. We can do it tomorrow."

Xinfei moved to speak but as he opened his mouth the faint sound of deep horns rose in the distance with a droning keen across Kuang Harbor. The sound rolled down the streets, faint and yet persistent as it bounced between houses, inns and shops, over canals drifting with slowly drifting boats. As Xinfei spun to seek an explanation for that noise he became aware of the almost imperceptible sound of drums. It all seemed to be coming from downriver.

"Ok." Xiaobao said, looking questioningly up at the ceiling of the tea shop. "What was that?"

"A disgrace to our nation," said Chonglong darkly.

Jiang was more informative, though in truth he seemed just as angry. "The Fire Sage of the Exclusion and his priests have begun the ceremonies to deify the late Ambassador Naruhama as city-god of their settlement. Since his funeral finished two days ago and his ghost is now pacified these rituals will continue for days or weeks to empower his soul to the point of godhood. And somehow the King gave permission for that to happen. I don't know how many people those foreigners needed to bribe to make that happen but I hope they were paid well enough to make up for betraying the sanctity of our land."

Xinfei thought to himself. "Yeah, yesterday Ayika and I heard about Islanders buying up soul offerings all over the lower city. One guy said that they were printing whole pallets of spirit money. People were pretty interested in all that. It seems that Ambassador was a pretty big deal to the Islanders."

Zhangyi wore a bitter smile. "Interested; of course. Poisonous snakes are often beautiful. Those bought and paid for royal ministers may have allowed them to begin their offerings the moment Naruhama's body was burned but there are still those in this city who hold faith. From now on we'll strike back at all those who betray our country." He rose and put his palms down flat on the table. He looked left and right, meeting eyes with both brothers. "Xinfei, Xiaobao, what do you say? Are you willing to help us? This is your city too. This is your choice."

Xinfei thought of Ayika's distrust for the protesters. He also thought of the flood of imported products putting people out of work, of the government doing more to help foreign merchants than to help the poor people of the Bed, and of his family's position at the very bottom of the bottom of the city. He also thought about how the current order had treated his father, and that this organization seemed to actually reward clever ideas no matter who they were from. Well, he had not actually learned anything yet that would help Ayika's investigation. So far he had nothing to offer her. And he had promised to help Ayika find answers. It would not hurt to tag along with these guys for one more day. People deserved to know exactly what Mister Gaoli was up to.

He stood up too, putting his hands on the table. "All right. I'm in."

...


	20. Necropolis

...

Ayika walked down the narrow street in the dark. She was alone. She had always been warned against going outside by herself at night but there was something she had needed to do. Only now she was not sure that her thought had been a valid reason. A faint mist hung in the air and the cold damp seeped up from the cracked and weathered bricks below. Her shoes were so thin that she could feel every edge, every pice of paving that had settled down or been pushed up by its surrounding fellows. The buildings around her had no lighted lanterns outside and no gleam of candles from within. It was late at night but the city's streets were never this dark. All the people must have gone somewhere, she could hear the dull murmuring of many distant voices echoing from some nearby block. It sounded like a great crowd.

Something felt wrong here. There was a tightness behind the wavering air. Though Ayika's thoughts were slow and muddled, it suddenly occurred to her that the Masks could be out prowling on a night like this and a lone foreign-skinned girl would be a prime target for them to vent their rage. Ayika began to walk faster, cursing whatever absentmindedness had permitted her to get lost in the Lower Ring. If that was where she really was.

Suddenly up ahead she saw a man walking away from her in the clammy dark. Though he shared a path with her he was moving much slower and his shoulders were hunched as if under a great burden. She could catch with him easily. At least he didn't look like a threat and Ayika was ready to submit her pride before the shame of asking for directions. She picked up her pace and came up behind him. As she grew closer she realized the man was very tall, even hunched over he would have towered over Xiaobao. The moon was beginning to rise.

"Excuse me, sir. Can..."

The huge man turned and the first glimmer of moonlight she saw the stretched blank skin that took the place of his eyes, nose and mouth. The bones of his skull could be seen working beneath that taught surface. The disfigured man recoiled at being exposed. He expected Ayika to flee but she only smiled at him with sympathy. That would be cruel. It wasn't his fault someone had stolen his face.

Paper fluttered and fell out of the edges of his robe, looking like slips of money from a careless bank. Strings of holy beads clicked and jostled as they lay in heaps around his neck. On his pale and blue veined forehead sat the band of a black glass crown like that of ancient kings. It was so tight that a line of blood trickled down from where it bit in above his brow. Ayika felt great pity for this huge man.

"Oh, you poor thing. Here, let me help you."

She reached out to grab his massive hand and the heat within him nearly burnt her. As she clutched him tightly the fibers in her arm twitched and spasmed as if some great power was reaching out to grab her. Ayika looked up at his sightless desolation she suddenly knew what she had to do.

She let go and stepped back. The faceless wretch held still for a moment as his fingers felt out for her in the air. Then he turned and began to walk again, deeper into the city. With each step he took the man expanded, growing taller and taller until he had to duck down under the pointed eaves that reached out over the street as he shuffled blindly on his way. Ayika took position in the middle of the path behind him.

The sound she made whispered past her lips like a soft breeze formed from still air by a small knot in a wall. She said one word. It was a command and a mercy.

"Burn."

Fire began to lick across the man's lower robes. His clothes went up in racing branches of flame like he had been soaked in oil. Still he walked forward in his same slow pace and still he grew with each step. The conflagration grew and soon he was a standing pyre, towering above the street below. Heat and force burst out from him, catching the adjacent buildings aflame. Now the night was bright. His hands burned fiercely and he left footsteps of bubbling stone glowing orange and white.

Finally the burning giant stopped and turned. Ayika looked up at the looming shape rising like a mountain shrouded in flame. The fire swept across his featureless skull and she saw the blank smooth skin sprout blackened holes as the fire ate away like to a paper mask over a candle flame. Beneath one burnt gap, Ayika saw a gentle and grateful eye emerge from hiding. Then the giant smiled and Ayika awoke with a start.

Beside her, Oakas shifted on their bedroll in his sleep, disturbed by her motion but not enough to be woken up. In the other room she heard the sound of her mother's light snoring. The apartment was dark and the day had yet to begin.

...

The next morning, Ayika stood up on Kuang Harbor's elevated tram platform looking out over a market square under clouded skies. Below, between the tile roofs, a few tendrils of mist still clung to the hundred canals in the early light. However, this was only so much backdropping as Ayika was preoccupied with feeling guilty. She really should have gone to see Xinfei this morning. But after their argument and avoiding him all yesterday the thought of showing up now only to tell him he could not come with her to the funeral in the Middle Ring today seemed cruel. Or maybe she was just being a coward. Yes, Xinfei had been acting weird lately but she had not been treating him great either. He'd been her best friend for years. And now she just kept on feeling like someone was watching her!

Ayika looked back over her shoulder. Of course no one was. The raised station floor was crowded as always with people eager to get into the city but no one had any reason to pay attention to one dark-skinned girl from the Bed. Ayika stamped her foot in frustration and was rewarded with a suspicious glance from one of the station guards. Well, at least now she could be certain that someone was watching her. Crossing her arms, Ayika leaned against one of the stone pillars that supported the open-walled station's high canopy. However, she could not blame her entire mood on Xinfei or lack of restful sleep, her mother had contributed as well.

Yesterday, Atika had arrived back home after parting with Mizumi outside the Exclusion to find a young man named Yukip sitting in her apartment sipping a cup of hot water flavored with a few of the family's precious tea leaves. Before Ayika could ask any questions, her mother had materialized in a maternal flurry and swept her daughter past the boy to the only other room in their dwelling. There Maekayae had started fiercely brushing her daughter'a hair while chiding her for being late to this appointment that no one had thought to make Ayika aware of. Of course, it was true that if she had known of these plans there was no chance that she would have come anywhere near the apartment that afternoon. She hated these matchmaking exercises.

The problem was not usually the boys themselves. Yukip seemed perfectly nice, and was maybe even handsome in a conventionally broad-chested Water Tribe sort of way. He worked as a bricklayer but his uncle was foreman for the building crew so he was confident he was going to move up the hierarchy in a year or less. He even seemed interested in her life, asking about the school and sounding genuinely concerned when he heard about the reason for her leave of employment.

No, what Ayika detested was the entire operation in its very abstract. She didn't know what that first spark of love was supposed to feel like but she was pretty sure it would not arrive while her mother was hovering over her shoulder mentally scolding her for not showing more warmth to whatever man she had chosen today. So Ayika had to content herself with giving small, inoffensive answers to Yukip's questions and trying not to wrinkle her lip as she saw a bit of chest hair poking out of the low neck of his shirt.

At least she had been spared this for all those years when her family had been convinced she was going to marry one of the Bao brothers, no matter how uncomfortable that made Xiaobao or how flustered and blushing Xinfei became at every joking mention. Still, eventually even Ayika's mother had to admit that particular avenue to grandchildren did not seem likely to give fruit. Since then Ayika had to assume that her mother had dedicated every waking moment that was not concerned with doting over her brother Oakas to cracking the problem of "a man for Ayika".

Back in the present, that tram station guard was still giving Ayika a sour look. At another time she might have ignored him but her work-given passport was still valid for two rides a day so she was free to give him the look right back. That man was not responsible for all the difficulties his gender had placed on her but for now he could serve as an adequate substitute. The guard was clearly surprised by a poor immigrant girl giving him such a cruel and relentless glare, but her passport was hanging from her hand so he had no choice but to walk off and inspect some other corner for lawlessness.

Ayika yawned, still feeling the toll of the previous nights, but when she opened her eyes Mizumi was coming up the long stone steps from the streets below. Ayika burst into a smile which she found mirrored back. "Mizumi! You're here!"

"Well, I said that I would be, did I not?" Mizumi cheerfully replied. "I would have arrived earlier but Ambassador Naruhama's deification ceremonies are causing much disruptions in the Exclusion streets. Sage Huitzlan is making a very big to do of it. I have never seen a sage put so much effort as that man is putting into these ceremonies. I suppose that this is the mission's way of thumbing the nose at the kingdom government's treatment of us. Or rather the way which does not involve Trade Representative Tailang in the earth palace complaining about the conservatives' protests."

Ayika made an exaggerated show of wrinkling her nose. "Politics and priests, ugh. I suppose that's one thing our countries might have in common." She looked over at the tram and the crowded rear compartment. She took a significant pause. "So...we should get moving to meet Lili. We've got our own funeral to go to. Do you want to choose a compartment?" She asked innocently, masking what she hoped was the answer,

Not fooled for a second, Mizumi smiled in return and they both moved toward then noble's car. Ayika was starting to enjoy the perks of having a rich friend. The guards were very carefully not staring at her any more. However, as she settled down into the cushioned seat she still felt like she was being watched; like the rising smoke of the chimneys contained eyes behind the air.

...

After the long tram ride, the journey from where they disembarked at the second Middle Ring stop to the Gaoli mansion on the Fifth Hill was fun. When Mizumi said that she was paying, Ayika had wanted to take one of the new Islander style carriages that stood lined up for rent at the foot of the station. However, Mizumi pointed out that on the narrow and steep streets of the Hill wheels might be a bad idea. So instead they both squeezed into a palanquin with gauzy pale green curtains around it. Ayika looked at the men who would have to carry them and whispered to Mizumi if it was ok to make them bear two people at once. One of the porters could not help snorting a laugh at that. He politely assured her that even if Ayika managed to duplicate herself halfway through the journey she'd still weigh a fraction of some of the customers they serviced. As she bounced down the street on her lightly padded seat, Ayika's cheeks still lightly burned with embarrassment from that even after Mizumi put her hand on her knee to assure her that it was perfectly all right.

Ayika's discomfort did not ease once they reached the mansions of the merchant families on the Fifth Hill. The Impenetrable City had originally been founded around four hills near the old banks of the Kuang river. As the ancient seat of power, those hills were still held by some of the most venerable noble houses even though in the intervening centuries earthbender magic had expanded each hill until the four had merged into the beginnings of the elevated Inner Ring of the city. Money alone could not buy entry to those exhaled rolling parklands and man-made lakes ringed with gardens and whispering with willows. However, money could buy almost everything else so when new powerful families arose a few centuries later they chose another hill site within the even by then greatly expanded metropolis. This agglomeration of resplendent merchant houses was dubbed the Fifth Hill and its carved marble walls and gold capped roofs still reared high above the rest of the ring. It was here that their palanquin was set down before the gates of the Gaoli Palace.

Once they were safely set on the ground Mizumi easily hopped out, pleased with the journey. Ayika quietly held her own private opinion that being bounced up and down on a couple guys' shoulders was fun once but she preferred to trust her own feet. She drew back the thin curtain and put down one foot outside the conveyance. And then she froze.

Mizumi looked back at her puzzled, not seeing the reason for her sudden lack of motion. She raised a questioning eyebrow.

Ayika struggled to speak, managing to affect a casual tone. "So you've been up here before?"

"No, why?" Mizumi said, offering a hand to help Ayika out of the palanquin.

Ayika jumped up on her own, trying to sweep her embarrassing moment under the rug. To someone like Mizumi there was nothing special to see. To her this was just a house. Ayika was sure that there was some technical definition of a palace and Mizumi would gently correct her if she used that word here but she could think of nothing more fitting.

The gates to the Gaoli residence were massive, and held two pale blue doors taller than Ayika's apartment. They were flanked on each side by carved marble statues of maned beasts at greater than life scale. The door on the right was open and Mizumi led her through it, gesturing for her to be aware and step over a lintel taller than those in most of the temples Ayika had been to. She was rapidly readjusting her view of the ladder of civilization by adding quiet a few more rungs above her.

Once inside, Ayika could barely keep track of the opulence she beheld. Pale floored courtyards ringed with reflecting pools glistened beside stone lanterns. Walls painted with images of flowering trees and women reclining beneath them holding instruments. Endless servants moved about on errands which even an experienced employee like Ayika could not guess.

Fortunately, Lili Gaoli met with them nearly instantly as they entered the main building. Unfortunately, after that rare instance of emotional vulnerability yesterday the merchant's daughter was back up to full energy in the excitement of assuming command of a murder investigation. As soon as she saw them, Lili executed an excited hopping motion and began to chatter to Mizumi a long string of inane questions and seemingly random comments, all of which sounded very oddly worded to Ayika. However, despite fact that on the tram earlier today Mizumi had mistaken a city postal office for a brothel the Islander now seemed perfectly at ease and responded with her own precise yet inane blather. This must have been more of the etiquette that the rich were so obsessed with. In Ayika's experience etiquette mostly consisted of bowing to anyone who could fire you or pay to have you beaten.

She plastered a fixed smile on her face and focused on not goggling like a country bumpkin who'd never passed below the city wall before. That smile became considerably more difficult to hold when Lili swept them through mansion's towering halls into what she referred to as a closet but Ayika was pretty sure was actually a full tailor's shop. Lili had many opinions on how to dress for a funeral, and even more when it came to makeup. Then it was a haze of pulling forth robe after robe and discussing more shades of white than Ayika was of the belief existed in the world. Grandma Aka hadn't used that many words to describe snow!

There was a slight snag when Lili froze with her make brush raised to apply some paint to Ayika's face and realized that she was encountering a very different skin tone from what she was accustomed to dealing with. However, Mizumi defused the tension of the moment with a few blush-inducing overgenerous compliments for Ayika's complexion and the suggestion of a more subtle approach to the ablutions. The Fire Nation girl inspected the available supplies for a moment before leaning in close to apply a few careful touches of the brush to Ayika's face; touches Ayika knew she would never have been able to replicate in ten thousand years. It was all incredibly embarrassing and as Ayika's cheeks burned she tried to fix her eyes on something other than Mizumi who was incredibly close right now. Mizumi, for her part, failed at suppressing a smile.

However, soon enough Lili was pushing the two of them out of her quarters, all dressed in their pretty white funeral robes like matching henchmen. Lili hurriedly shepherded them back to the entry hall with a quickly spoken, "All right ladies, now we go go go go go."

There was enough anxiety and urgency in Lili's voice that Ayika expected to hit the courtyard and start running all the way to the funeral site. Instead, when they reached the front room of the mansion Lili came to a halt and stood in the middle of the floor nervously checking every part of her outfit and occasionally reaching over to fuss with Mizumi's as well. Ayika wondered what they were waiting for until the back doors swung open and Mister Aizhang Gaoli walked in, deep in conversation with some man of his employ. Lili clasped her hands before her and demurely bowed her head as her father neared. Ayika noted that apparently the funeral dress codes were less strict for men since Mister Gaoli had contented himself with replacing his customary wide green belly sash with a white one. She also noted that his eyes never once looked up to see his daughter's face.

"All right, Lili," he said. "Get in the second carriage. I need to discuss some things with Dao. It's important to make our statement by appearing at this ceremony but there are still important things to do today." He was still looking at a pad of numbers in his hand but something of his peripheral vision noticed an accounting discrepancy in his household. He looked up. "There are three of you?"

Lili bobbed further down in a bow. "Yes, father," she said meekly. Ayika and Mizumi shared a surreptitious look. Even another rich girl like Mizumi clearly thought that this display was unsettling. Lili continued to address the floor. "This is Mizumi, Mister Miohuito's daughter. She recently joined me at the school. She was in Professor Lizhen's class and wanted to pay her respects. And this is Ayika...I also know her from the school. I...I asked mother yesterday to tell you about inviting them." The lack of the confidence that usually permeated this hyper-animated girl was disconcerting.

Mister Gaoli gave his daughter's companions a quick interrogatory glance. "Ah, yes. Miss Miohuito. Oh, and a tribal girl? Good for you, Lili. Always good to show the political flag." That was apparently approval in the Gaoli house since he instantly returned to his figures and the discussion with his man Dao as they swept out while servants opened the main doors to the courtyard. On the street outside the gates two modern Islander-style carriages were waiting. The Gaoli's apparently had different views from Mizumi of the vehicles' practicality for city travel.

Then all three of the young women were bundled into the rear carriage heading to the funeral under a greying cloudy sky. Lili was now smiling as broadly as ever. She launched into her normal chattering rhythm. "See, I told you there would be no difficulty in you two attending. ai know how this works. Now that we have another chance to be alone you must tell me everything that you've learned so far! You said you discovered worrying clues about the poor professor's death. What did you find and what do I need to be looking for today?"

Ayika decided to let Mizumi carry this section of the conversation. After all, Lili still seemed uncomfortable addressing Ayika directly, although she at least tried to hide it. Mizumi adhered to their previous agreement and made little mention to Lili of what had happened at the warehouse. After all, even without the unsettling Masks there was still the touchy matter of her father hiding supposedly destroyed machines in those walls. Mizumi also glossed over how they even knew about the nationalist movement and the gardener Ma'er's ambiguous relationship to the whole conspiracy. Really, after all the quick censorship it was impressive that Lili managed to follow at all. However, the brief overview done Mizumi transferred topics to distract the other girl with reference to some entertainment they'd both attended or read about or something. Ayika could make neither heads nor tails of that conversation but Lili seemed interested.

From her seat Ayika plucked at the white outfit she was wearing. She had never worn white clothing through the streets before, or at least not any that had stayed white. Mizumi must have sensed how overwhelmed Ayika was because she now broke off from talking with Lili about whatever play or book they had been discussing and resumed asking Ayika questions about the city outside. As soon as Lili looked slightly distracted by butting in with a lecture on some passing sight outside the window Mizumi whispered into Ayika's ear, "Once we get to the site, you are going to need to take the charge. I barely knew Teacher Lizhen and I hardly know this city. Lili did not see what we saw at the warehouse, she does not understand the danger of this. I can only help distract people, you are the one who has a chance to find something out."

Lili suddenly spoke up from her side of the carriage, grumbling in an off hand way. "Oh, of course, the day I spend an extra bit of time doing my hair the weather does this. It is a shame that the poor professor couldn't receive better conditions than that. He deserved better."

Ayika turned away from Mizumi's face to look out the window at what weather had provoked this comment. There were hazing drifts of fog still hanging in the air here even this late in the morning. That was odd, fog did not usually hang around for so long this side of the wall from the rice paddies. As the two carriages ambled their way toward the foot of the Nobles Wall the world was slowly tinted grey and clammy.

In the classic contradictory style of the city, in order to reach the tomb-filled depths of the Under-King's pit they now needed to travel up a gentle slope. After winding through endless city streets and over carved stone bridges vaulting ornamental streams they went past one last row of well-apportioned houses. They passed up the low hill through a small thicket of trees on each side that in the space starved city were an amazing luxury afforded only to the dead. The graveyard was bounded by this narrow belt of a parklike slope that rose up above the level of the neighborhood in a gentle hill, mirroring the city's own girdle of farmland as here the trees separated the wilderness of the living from the city of the dead.

Then the carriages crested the small ridge and the girls looked out at the foundations of a civilization built as ruins. A large semicircle of land hugging the side of the Nobles Wall was filled with an endless tight and twining maze of walls and steps and platforms and standing monuments, all of carved and fitted stone engraved with the names of those long gone. This jumble was where the families of the dead could come to pay their respect to a personalized memorial. Providing of course that they could pay for the spot to be engraved; there was only so much space in those sprawling ruins of an unbuilt city. In the center of the necropolis, near the wall, stood a square two-tiered temple. Under its swooping tiled eaves it was painted in all the shades of precious jade across flat windowless walls. At the moment the only visitors visible within the necropolis were drifting clouds of mist.

Ayika looked out at the winding expanse of paths between carved pillars and unroofed walls passing by on each side of the narrow driveway. "The professor must have been pretty important to be buried here. I wonder what his monument is going to look like?"

Lili smiled unevenly with the motions of someone trying to delicately break bad news."The Lizhen name is an old and respected line. However, the teacher himself... Well, there might not be many people there at the ceremony. He did not really have a family."

"No family?" Ayika said. "I knew Lizhen'd never been married, but I never imagined he was that alone."

Striving to shift off that depressing line of discussion, Mizumi broke in with a question. "So, what are we to expect of funeral practices in the Kingdoms? I have never attended a ceremony of your culture."

Lili understood the impulse to change topics, even if funerals were hardly less depressing. "Oh, you know, it's not very interesting. He, er, the body will be put up somewhere where we have to see it. Of course they cover everything up with shrouds and there is a hood of stones over the head. The priest chants on for a while, swinging smoke everywhere, and then they take him down to the tomb below ground. Many people call it beautiful, but I find it all very unsettling."

"Well, we burn our dead, so that is different." Mizumi said. "Although in our practices there is also a mask. Wood, so it can burn with the body. I wonder why that is the same all the way across the ocean?"

Ayika was still looking out as the passing jumble of the necropolis. She spoke absently. "The stones contain the ghost within them so when they're linked to the body the ceremony can dissipate the ghost's destructive power and give the soul free rain to ascend into the cycle of reincarnation. That allows people to safely make offerings to the soul of the departed without empowering the ghost. That's why the ceremony's got be done quickly before the ghost grows too strong." It took a moment for Ayika to realize that both other women were looking at her with astonishment. Such matters had been part of her daily life since she was small, one of the many duties her grandmother conducted in the community. Until recently.

Mizumi blinked. "Wow. Ok. I suppose that the wooden death mask might serve the same purpose for us of the Nation. Masks...I wonder..."

Ayika shook her head. She knew that Mizumi was thinking of the secret organization. "The fact that it's a mask is coincidence. The Northern Tribe engraves charms onto weight stones before we sink the body and it does the same duty. The poor here in the City make do with a few clay tables over the eyes. It's just a ritual. All that matters is the intent with which it's crafted and the contracts with the spirit world, and that it's done when the body's put to rest, no matter how that's done." Her lip twisted into a smile. Her grandmother had always said that she could pacify a lost ghost with a stick and a single knuckle bone. She had also said she could pacify Ayika with just the stick. In both is was about making someone believe you could do it.

Lili's eyes were even bigger than usual as she stared in surprise. "How did you learn all this? I mean, I noticed that you were listening to the teachers in the back of our classes but none of the teachers covered any of that at the school."

Lili had payed attention to servants? "My Grandma Aka. She worked in the Bed as a..." From the shocked looks flashing across Lili and Mizumi's faces she assumed they were not well versed in the colloquial names of harbor town districts. That could cause misunderstandings. "No no no! Not in bed. She worked _in our neighborhood_ as a...a priest for those who could not afford a priest. Someone to talk with the spirits on a more informal level. Healing minor sicknesses, yanking out bad dreams, dispelling curses and the like. She taught me in her own way; at the time it mostly sounded like complaining."

Lili nodded in a faintly approving way. "Well, she at least sounds better than most of the government priests I've seen, not that that's saying much. They just read out of the ministry approved spell book and perform everything according to a pricing chart. It's hardly a wonder that people hardly ever go to the temples anymore."

"Do not be so sure that you would be happy with the other extreme," Mizumi added. "Father says that Fire Sage Huitzlan who runs the Exclusion temple is passionate and an expert on spiritual matters, but he is far too patriotic for my tastes. Not to mention, that passion and knowledge means his ceremonies take forever to complete. Though it is a shame I did not meet you, Ayika, in time to sneak you into Ambassador Naruhama's burning. I did not know you were interested in these things."

Ayika felt a smile twisting at her lips as she turned to glance back out the carriage window. Sh knew that it was simple vanity now making her feel so good, but she did not care. Mizumi who could talk about books and plays for hours was impressed by her knowledge. And Lili had noticed things about her even as she was working in the school. That girl was more perceptive than Ayika had given her credit for even if she was still stuck up and self absorbed. The carriage continued to rumble down the gently sloping path through the necropolis.

...


	21. Funeral

...

The two carriages rolled to a stop in a narrow strip of clear space near the Noble's Wall between where the outer maze of monuments ended and the mass of the immense central temple began. Several people had arrived ahead of them; there were two sedan chairs resting off to the side of the temple entrance. The bearers crouched on their heels beside them and occasionally rubbed their bare arms as they looked up at the fog in resentment. Ayika opened her door of the carriage and carefully climbed down to the ground with Mizumi following behind her. They both jumped slightly as Lili abruptly materialized between them, having somehow jumped down from the other side of the vehicle and swept around in the time it took Mizumi to descend two steps.

"All right," Lili whispered conspiratorially. "One of those chairs has to belong to Wu Lizhang. He's some cousin of Professor Lizhen, an accountant at a Middle Ring counting house, and truth-be-told the only family of the Professor that father could scrounge up. He wasn't incredibly excited about this ceremony but he has blood obligation so he would have to be first to arrive. Even so, I think he only came on the slim chance that he might be posed to inherit some money."

Ayika was coming to realize how little she knew about Professor Chen Lizhen. She was coming at his life backwards. All the threads of his existence were unraveled across the city and she was trying to piece together the tapestry they had once formed. How could she find justice for him if she did not even understand the man who she was helping? All she knew was a smiling little man who liked to fiddle with his ink-brush as he talked. And someone had cared enough about him to kill him. Ayika's breath hurt in her chest. They had to have cared. There had to be some grand mystery behind it. It could not just be a random accident.

Lili's father disappeared through the great doors of the temple. Lili gestured up the steps for the other girls to follow. "Come on, let's get inside."

Ayika took comfort in the fact that Mizumi's footsteps were hesitant as well, but together they followed Lili up into the hulking temple building. Through the door, Ayika stared in wonder at a vast empty space lit by the dim green glimmer given off by consecrated glowing crystals which adorned the walls in bunched sockets. The whole interior of the temple was one room without dividing walls and indeed without a great deal of floor. Five meters past the square box of the walls the carefully polished marble temple floor was interrupted by a perfect circle punched out of the world, wider than two street blocks in the city. The huge stone-walled hole extended down precipitously out of sight. As they walked closer, Ayika could see carved staircases snaking down along the walls of the pit and alcoves lit with shards of green crystal, down and down until distance swallowed the dim light. This was the Pit of the Underking.

Beside her, Mizumi whispered. "Wow, you kingdom people do not half-do any construction."

Lili was a little ways off near one of the main walls, her eyebrows raised and fingers wigging to summon them over to her. As they came near to her side she said, "Isn't it creepy? Coming here reminds me of the funeral for my mother's paternal uncle. No one liked him but still everyone needed to come and be sad and respectful."

She must have for once heard her own tome since she then hurriedly corrected herself. "Not that anyone was glad he was dead but he did not talk with the family much. Now let's see who else has arrived yet and..." Lili stopped in mid sentence. "Is that Erliao? What under heaven is he doing here?!"

Ayika followed Lili's gaze across the open space of the temple and saw a clean shaven man in his late thirties or early forties dressed in the dark greens trimmed with gold of a government official. He was speaking to one of the priests. Nothing about him looked particularly menacing but he was clearly producing a strong reaction in Lili.

Now Mizumi inhaled sharply. "Wait, Minister Erliao? That makes absolutely no sense for him to attend!"

Ayika had experienced enough cryptic statements for now. "Who's Erliao? Why is it weird for him to be here?"

Ayika had to give Lili credit, there was no one better at relaying a lot of explanation in a very short time if you could parse all of it out of her lightning lip movements. What followed was a flurry of semi-whispered words.

"Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression Chao Erliao is one of the premier voices of the conservative movement that wants to restrict all trade with foreign powers in the name of curbing outside influence and protecting the unique and unchanging culture of the Kingdoms and he is the one who personally called for Professor Lizhen to be expelled from the Royal University. My father hates him." Ayika was not sure Lili took a single breath.

Indeed the Minister and Mister Gaoli were walking towards each other now and the intersection of their paths brought them very close to where the three girls were standing. As the men neared, Mister Gaoli was first to speak and Ayika could hear that barely disguised animosity. "Ah, Sub-Minister Erliao, how good of you to come down. I hadn't realized you and Chen were still so close."

Erliao nodded graciously. He had a pleasant and lyrical voice of one who sparkled in settings of intelligent conversation. "The past can not be erased by disagreements of the present. As it is said, 'The storm-clouds do not make the sky less blue' and Chen Lizhen was once a dear friend of mine. I was shocked to hear of his death."

Gaoli nodded without betraying any specific emotion, "Of course."

Erliao then looked to the side where the girls were standing. "And you have brought your lovely daughter! As well as some of her foreign friends?"

Gaoli's eyes narrowed slightly. In todays politics the word 'foreign' was loaded, especially coming from the mouth of one of the lead conservatives. "Chen was an instructor of my daughter's. Miss Miohuito and the other were her classmates. They are here under my invitation."

Mizumi and Ayika both felt their hearts begin to pound at a government official seeing them in a holy site where foreigners were not permitted. However, the minister smiled and brought his hands together in front of him for a small bow to Mizumi. "It is right and honorable for a student to mourn for her teacher. Sometimes small regulations must be bent for the purpose of preserving what is proper. Miss Miohuito, I have spoken with your father on several occasions. On the next I will have to compliment him on having a beautiful daughter." After a brief hesitation, Mizumi returned the bow with her hands at her sides in the stiff style of the Islanders. Ayika only received from the sub-minister an inscrutable look that seemed piercing and questioning. She was not sure that anyone else had noticed.

All Erliao's manners, no matter how fancy, did not seem to comfort Gaoli. "Yes, well it appears the last guest has arrived. I'll go welcome Professor Ma and then the ceremony can begin."

The priests began to arrive at their stations for the funeral shortly after that. Ayika had seen dead people before and she thought she had steeled herself for what was to come. However, when the priest revealed the body she found tears rushing into her eyes. He looked so small. Whatever motivating force had given the short grey haired man his presence and power when he was alive was gone. Something sad and shriveled lay wrapped in funeral shrouds on that stone slab. Even his face had been taken from him, hidden behind a mask of linked squares of pale stone. If Lizhen had been of nobility that mask would have been jade. If he had been poor it would have just been two bits of clay over his eyes. If the world had been just he would have been surrounded by weeping loved ones and family instead of a single servant girl who was crying more for the loss of whatever dream he had symbolized to her than for the man himself.

Ayika felt a brief rush of self-hatred. Lizhen had been a great man, a scholar, one who played in the rarified political spheres of the city and the world. He had been struck down by his enemies before her eyes and she was starting to cry because she could no longer play at pretending she was another of his rich students just learning at his school. Now as the priest continued to drone, waving incense to create drifting shapes of smoke in the air, Ayika felt her breath becoming uneven. She tried to hold back sobs, cursing her own weakness. Sub-minister Erliao was glaring at her with profound distaste, and Mister Gaoli flicked a concerned look over to his daughter.

Then Ayika felt a hand grasp hers. Mizumi's hand eased her fingers out of their clenched fists and then held tight, a palm soft and smooth without hard work's calloused badges. The Fire Nation girl gave no other sign but with that touch of skin Ayika was able to breath deeply and regain control of herself. Together they stood in silence and watched as the priest performed the ritual to seal Lizhen's ghost behind that linked stone mask and set his soul free to wait in heaven until he was spun out into a new life.

As Ayika stood there she tried to ignore the feeling that something was deeply wrong. The priest was performing every rite correctly but the feeling of completion that Ayika was expecting never came. Outside the temple, the mists gathered.

Then the ritual was over and what remained of the professor was left to the priests as they declared that Lizhen would rest in a charm-inscribed tomb beneath the wall forever, just like the Builder King. The paltry mourners murmured agreement and thanks, all understanding that in actuality the body would rest in the apportioned tomb for less than a year before his bones were separated and stored according to the most space saving method. The walls of the Impenetrable city stretched for endless miles beyond the horizon but even so there was only room for the stone draped skull to actually rest within its foundations else the mighty defenses would have collapsed ages ago, undermined by the city's endless dead. Everyone knew this, and yet everyone knew with equal force that their loved ones lay whole and undisturbed in their promised tombs. So much of this city depended on mutually agreed upon delusions.

Then the strange party of funeral guests made their way outside the temple to where a few small tables were laid out, covered with snacks of assumedly ritual importance. So now they milled about at in that thin gravel covered strip between the Temple of the Pit and the sprawling necropolis of tombs and monuments that surrounded it. Lili gathered up the other two girls and led them in introductions to Lizhen's cousin and the university professor, but most of her enthusiasm for this investigatorial quest had faded under the pallor of the funeral.

Cousin Wu Lizhen did not reveal himself to be in a mood to answer questions about his relative. He had finally confirmed that Professor Lizhen had no appreciable assets up for inheritance and so was now waiting the absolute minimum amount of time before he could leave without it being unseemly. They had better luck when Lili introduced them to Professor Ma, Lizhen's former colleague at the Royal University.

His mouth was mostly full with hors d'oeuvres but he still responded with fire to Ayika's inquiry. "No, I was not close friends with Chen Lizhen! But I am here to make known my protest of how he was treated. It was dreadful that he was removed from his post. Absolutely disgraceful!" He leaned in close. "People don't want to mention it but it's a conspiracy you know."

Mizumi managed to hold in her excitement. "Really? You must tell me more. I heard that the late professor had suffered unjust criticism for his political statements but-"

Professor Ma interrupted, filled with sudden disgust. "His politics! Bah! He should have been whipped from sunup to sundown for saying such traitorous things. Showing mercy and understanding to the Fire Nation! After everything that happened in the war, it makes me sick. And to suggest that we are the ones who should change and adopt foreign ways..." He shuddered at this unthinkable sentiment. The University professor gave no sign that he recognized Mizumi as one of those Fire Nation scum. Ayika assumed it was possible he had never seen an Islander in the flesh before.

"But, but...," Mizumi stammered. "I thought you said that it was disgraceful he was removed from his post at the university."

"Of course it was! He had tenure!" Professor Ma said like that was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's all part of a conspiracy to weaken the position of us scholars. First you ignore the rights of a few obvious traitors and then pretty soon they try to kick me out for refusing to teach students. As if that was an important part about working for the University! Well, I see what they're doing and I won't stand for it."

Lili saw the stunned disbelief plastered across Mizumi's face, as well as the way Ayika was regarding the pair of pointy chopsticks in her hand with relation to the unprotected side of this man's neck and decided to end things now. "It was great to meet you, Professor, but I believe I saw my father call us over." She grabbed both Mizumi and Ayika by the hand. "I am very sorry for the loss of your colleague."

Professor Ma was not paying them much attention. He muttered to himself. "Death; there's another fellow who doesn't respect tenure. A disgrace."

Mister Gaoli had of course given them no such signal. Still, all Lili's few leads had been exhausted and they had no where else to go. As they made their way back to Lili's father, Ayika looked out into the maze-like stone forest of walls and monuments that encircled the pit temple, all inscribed with the names of the dead whose families could afford to honor them. However, at the moment many of those names were obscured by that same clinging mist that had been lingering in this part of the city all morning. To the south it was particularly thick, lying like a small cloud come to rest on this particularly uneven bed. Being this near the clifflike shadow of the Noble's Wall must to strange things to wind because the air was shifting that fog in odd ways. The back of her neck prickled.

Ayika realized she had stopped moving. Lili and Mizumi were now a ways ahead of her passing by some black robed priest or worker who then vanished behind one of the carriages in one step. Ayika had fallen behind in the effort to walk and look around at the same time. It was also hazardous as Ayika learned when she almost walked smack into a stationary man in dark robes and a large black hat with a round drooping brim.

She stepped back in the last second before she planted her face in the man's back. "Oh, I am so sorry sir. I wasn't looking where I was going. I didn't see-"

"No one can see all the time, girl. Although, I do believe you are getting better." The man spoke without turning around. He was heavily covered up, as if expecting a downpour any moment. With the strange moisture in the air around here Ayika supposed that might be sensible, she had goosebumps on the back of her own neck. Ayika had not seen him in the funeral party before but with his dark clothes he could be a grounds-tender come in out of the fog. In any case, he was not someone she felt she needed to have an extended conversation with.

"Well, I'll try. Um, I'm just going to scoot by you now." She started to edge around him when he took a step to the side quite abruptly. He still was not facing her.

From under his robes the man shook something metal and clattering as he spoke. "Passing is the problem. The bright fire is keeping everyone awake, and still they build it higher. Be aware girl, there are other sighted eyes behind you." This pronouncement was said with such force that Ayika could not help but spin around, her heart suddenly pounding.

There was nothing there, only a thick bank of fog that had settled down in the half bowl of the necropolis above them, a final refuge before the rising sun pierced through the clouds above to burn it away. Nothing to be seen, and when Ayika turned around the chastise the groundskeeper for scaring her he had scurried off. Nothing to be seen of him either. Several meters away Mizumi was gesturing for her to come on over and join her and Lili again. Ayika quickly slid over and asked her in a quiet whisper, "Did you see where he went?"

"Who?" Mizumi said out of the corner of her mouth. Ayika opened hers but then realized she had never seen the man's face and had almost nothing to describe him with. Only that he wore dark robes and boots with metal nails in the soles. She had heard the metal click when he stepped on stone. This fog did strange things to sound.

Mister Gaoli was in conversation with the Minister Erliao again and looked like he would appreciate Lili or someone else rescuing him before he did something regrettable. Erliao paid no mind to the glowering air of his conversation partner and continued to discuss the departed as if this were a normal funeral celebration.

"Chen Lizhen was a brilliant man," Erliao said. "His work analyzing how collective societal action affects interactions with the spirit world was amazing and frankly had him on the track for a ministership. His commentary on _Analects of a Meditative Journey_ alone brought him to the attention of the royal court. His class on comparative rituals was fascinating! There were those who'd eyed him as one whose illustrious career might one day make him a candidate for minor godhood." Here he shook his head sadly. "But that was before he became uncomfortably radical and started talking about other cultures having superior aspects that we of the kingdoms should adopt." He shook his head sadly. "It is unlucky that in his comparative studies he strayed from the path and mistook the novel and unfamiliar for genius."

Gaoli exhaled in a burst that could be taken as either agreement or disagreement with that statement. "Yes, with the death of both Lizhen and Ambassador Naruhama in a matter of days we reformers do look like an unlucky bunch don't we?"

Minister Erliao looked at him askance. "Now Aizhang, I hope you don't think I could possibly take any pleasure in these tragedies. I know we disagree on some political matters but I knew Chen and Aza to be honorable men who happened to be mistaken about what is best for this nation. Chen's murder is not exactly good news for the conservatives either. Trade Representative Tailang has been on a warpath and unfortunately some of the king's men are starting to listen to him out of sheer anxiety for what the Fire Lord might do. Tailang has always exaggerated the actions of conservative supporters in order to buy his fellow foreigners more concessions and protections but now without Aza Naruhama to reign him in his ambition has gone too far."

Gaoli folded his hands over his broad stomach as he thought. "Tailang, in the past, urged for greater assurances that no Kingdom industries would duplicate Fire Nation technology in any way. Restrictions that all machines must be owned and operated by foreign hands even if they are used by domestic companies." It sounded like he did not approve.

Erliao took a step forward, as if sensing a thread to tug. "And now he may get it. That would be a poor outcome from both our perspectives. For a while it seemed that every move of the nationalist protest movement played right into his hands, furthering his cause. Fortunately those days are over, but with whatever disaster happened to Lizhen, Tailang is again reaching for the tiller of our state. The people of the city are waking up but it may be too little too late. Even power can quail before treachery."

"Well," Gaoli began. "You may have a few days of peace to come. Since he's the new highest ranking figure in the Exclusion I think Tailang may be caught up in some of the ceremonies involved in deifying Naruhama as their city-god. Fire Sage Huitzlan is apparently a stickler for formalities."

Now that Ayika was close she could see the hint of bags under minister Erliao's eyes. If he was working that hard lately then he was more worried about the politics than his calm voice indicated. He said, "Unfortunately, I've come to doubt that most people are capable of being converted by reasoned argument. Avarice and impulse consume our people. When we find the man who killed Chen I...well, justice will be served."

"They've found something out?" Ayika burst out, unable to hold herself back. Erliao seemed to be speaking from personal knowledge. "They know it was a man?"

Erliao focused on Ayika and for the briefest of seconds his gaze was filled with disgust and the most terrible anger at her presence. Then it was gone so quickly Ayika was not sure if she had imagined it. He nodded his head in her direction and spoke with perfect understanding and sympathy. "The Public Safety Authority has taken on the investigation. They alway uncover the truth, you have my word. Your teacher's soul will be given closure. In fact..."

Here he suddenly broke off. He was looking in the distance behind Ayika and his eyes grew wide. Ayika turned and could just make out a figure in the drifting fog bank, standing on the base of an elevated monument overlooking the pit Temple. For an instant she thought it was the groundskeeper who had spoken to her but no, this figure was wearing one of the woven conical hats favored by farmers. Small objects were dangling from the edges of the brim like a beaded curtain, Ayika could not even tell which direction this person was facing. Were they regarding a memorial marker or looking down at the funeral party below? And then the mist shifted and person was hidden again.

Erliao was curiously distressed. Under his practiced poise his breathing was elevated. "Did you see? Gaoli, who was that? That was not one of the invited guests."

Lili's father raised his eyebrow. "Get a hold of yourself, Chao. This is a public graveyard after all. No need to interrogate a mourner for getting too close to us."

The minister regained his composure. "Yes, of course. I suppose I was just thinking of someone from my past. Funerals can provoke those thoughts. This fog is unsettling."

Gaoli did not seem to buy this explanation but he also did not seem to care. "Speaking of the past, I believe the cousin Lizhen has finally snuck off past us which by my estimation means the funeral is over." He gave a small jerking bow to Erliao. "Sub-minister. I look forward to seeing you next time you try to advocate for greater trade restrictions that will strangle our people's development."

Erliao was back to his normal charming self. However, Ayika saw him flick a single glance back to the fog where he had seen the mourner. He bowed to Gaoli, the precise depth etiquette dictated was proper for an interaction of their respective ranks from a superior to an inferior. "And I look forward to hearing your next advocacy for why we should abandon all our traditions to make ourselves into a false copy of the Fire Nation." There was one last moment where his glance met Ayika's eyes and once again there was a flash of suspicion.

They parted, the three girls once again piling into the second carriage. As they sat down and the wheels slowly began to turn Ayika was deep in thought but Lili's voice still broke through. "Oh Ayika, I'm so sorry that the Sub-Minister treated you like that. I'd heard that some people had issues talking with tribals but there was nothing acceptable about those looks he was giving you."

This heartfelt concern and indignation on her behalf caught Ayika by surprise. "What? No, it's fine. Nothing I'm not used to. Something was knocking him off his balance. Something about that Tailang? I'm just sorry that we couldn't find out anything about Lizhen." She wondered to herself, who from his past had he seen in the mist's swirling shapes?

Lili was not satisfied. She crossed her arms and folded her legs, tapping her foot mid-air in a rapid blur of agitation. "No, it is not fine. You were no threat to anything of his. You didn't open any insult or aggressions with him. That was just pure ill-mannerdness."

Ayika had no choice but to smile. A righteously angry Lili was like being lectured by a small yappy dog. One that was comfortably unaware of its own hypocrisy. "Don't spend effort worrying over it. Lots of people can't get over caring what people look like. Compared to what's out there, harsh looks are nothing to complain about."

"Many people have difficulty with what they see to be out of the usual." Mizumi said and she shared a look with Ayika of mutual understanding. In the back of her mind Ayika thought that being a very rich foreigner was not quite the same but she just drank in the acceptance instead.

There was an embarrassed throat clearing from the other side of the carriage. "Erm, I suppose I should apologize," Lili began, quietly straining as if attempting a herculean task. "I'm sorry, Mizumi, for the things I said on your first and, well, only day of school. I just felt a little threatened. All the girls at that school looked up to me since I could get all the latest Islander fashions as soon as they got off the docks. Then you showed up actually being from there and, well, I suppose I acted a little silly."

Mizumi raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips in an impressed expression. "Thank you. And I suppose I am sorry that I said you did not have a brain between your ears. And that you were wearing boys shoes. And that your hair comb was a pet brush. It is not actually, you know."

"I knew it!" Lili swelled up as she clenched her fist at the memory. "Why you devious little..."

Ayika interrupted with a wide grin, leaning on Mizumi to push her towards Lili on the kther side of the carriage. "I'm glad you're becoming such great friends."

Mizumi laughed and Lili made the outer appearances of fuming while biting her lip to hide a smile. They still had more to arrange if they were to continue the their search for the truth. They would meet once more at Lili's house the following night. There was not a great deal of choice as Lili had little chance of getting permission to leave the house on a day when she was not attending the school. Till then the three of them together sat as they rolled along down the streets of the city. The fog had all vanished by now and normal weather once more prevailed.

...


	22. Charms

...

Maekayae of the Northern Water Tribe was a strong and determined woman who despite raising two children and sustaining an impressive output of piecework sewing-for-hire still managed to maintain the considerable network of personal acquaintance that determined status for women of every class in this city. Unfortunately, she was also Ayika's mother. That meant that all this force and drive was now brought to focus on her daughter's life with the power of a sea-eagle's dive breaking the water's surface after a fish. Today it all hit Ayika so that by the time she blearily blinked awake she had already been sat upright and her hair was being combed and primped while she was still on her futon.

After yesterday's failure of with the young suitor Yukip, Maekayae had decided to work on securing her daughter a job first, buying more time to find a man. As her mother jerked a brush through her hair with enough strength to make her wince, Ayika gave her father a look of wide-eyed and pleading desperation across the breakfast table. Her father, always a man of few words, only returned a similarly silent look that said on this particular instance he agreed with his wife. Then Makon finished bolting down the last of his bowl of porridge before rushing off to his job on the pilot boat. Ayika's shoulders sagged. Her little brother Oakas surreptitiously flicking crumbs at her face didn't make things any better. It did not look promising for her chances of meeting with Mizumi and Lili tonight. Instead she had an interview at Mrs Anyakya's Tribal Laundry.

There were a lot of stereotypes about the people of the Water Tribes held by citizens of the city. That they were all half-civilized, illiterate, and savage ghost-whisperers. However, it was also said they were the best at cleaning. Ayika could only assume that this idea came from some half-formed association between water and cleanliness, since Grandma Aka and of the other people who had spent most of their lives in the tribal lands tended to regard washing as akin to war; a necessary evil only to be conducted after extensive deliberation and consultation of the signs and spirits. However, residents of the city thought that the People were good cleaners so it had taken a young immigrant named Anyakya only a few moments after entering under the gate to decide to open her own laundry, staffing the front of the shop with pretty tribal girls in cliched outfits and the back with native Kingdom workers who actually knew how to get stains out of clothes. Decades later, she now owned eight locations.

Ayika had an appointment today at one of them. Fortunately, in one bit of good news she was able to convince her mother not to follow behind her like Ayika was a little girl sent into town on an errand for the first time. Actually, Xiaobao had convinced her. He and his brother had arrived just after Ayika had experienced being rapidly shoved into her best blue dress. She only owned three dresses but this article had not managed to accumulate any rips yet and was still retaining most of its original dye. When the Bao brothers arrived, Ayika's mother was suddenly all smiles and insisted on pressing into their hands a little package of dried fish as a gift to their mother. She said that it was a thank you gift for something Mrs Bao had done for her but Xinfei averted his eyes and Xiaobao nodded weakly to this story. Ayika's mother was always uncomfortable speaking about Mrs Bao but at the same time always insisted on doing what she could to take care of the two brothers. After that display Maekayae could hardly refuse to let them be the ones to chaperone Ayika to her interview.

Ayika stepped out of the door of her apartment onto the rough wooden walkway over the murky riverbed water and breathed deeply in the slightly fetid air. After that growling and quarreling with her mother even the green foamy pool at the foot of the River Wall was a welcome change. She shook herself loose, thanked Xiaobao profusely for saving her, and struck off leading the boys out into the Bed. As they walked, she filled Xinfei in on what she had discovered with Mizumi yesterday. She thought he reacted oddly when she told him about joining forces with Lili Gaoli but it was probably the strangeness of her spending time with his boss's daughter.

He in turn told her that he had reestablished their contact with the student protesters. Ayika no longer felt that those university boys were the right avenue of investigation. They didn't know who led their organization and hanging around them only risked exposure to the men wearing the masks. Those Masks made her uneasy. But it was so good to be talking to Xinfei in a normal way again that she didn't mention her doubts. Before they could climb the stairs up the old bank to exit the river bed and enter the rest of the town they had to stop by the Bao house.

The Baos hadn't always lived down in the Bed. Maolin and Xinfei had been born in a small but well-constructed dwelling along a side canal in a working-class neighborhood of Kuang Harbor. However, after the death of their father even the incomes of two boys with jobs could not afford to hold on to that little house. Moving down amongst immigrants to a ramshackle apartment of mismatched timber had been hard on Mrs Bao.

Xiaobao walked up a few uneven steps and opened the door. "Hey mom! We're back for a second, and we brought Ayika with a gift from her mother. Isn't that nice?"

Ayika followed him in holding the little bundle before her. "Hi, Mrs Bao." She held it out with both hands as she bowed a little. "It's dried dogfish with that slightly spicy seasoning she remembered you liking."

"Oh, that's kind of her." Mrs Bao said in a soft breathy voice. "I will have to remember to do something for her."

Mai Bao sat in a chair next to the tiny open window. Though still fairly young, the hand which took the bundle from Ayika was delicate and so thin that Ayika could see each individual bone. Mrs Bao had never recovered from the death of her husband. Of course everyone in the Bed had grieved with her when that nasty business had left her alone with two boys not yet to the cusp of manhood. They had even regarded her with no little bit of pride when she still wore her widow's shawl two years later. In a district where some remarriages were only delayed long enough to retrieve the knife out of deceased's back it was good to see a woman going above and beyond the customary rules. However, after four years the good will had run out. That point had been three years ago. These days Mai Bao had very few visitors, which was a shame as she rarely exited this room except on high holidays to make offerings to her lost husband's soul by the defunct River Temple.

"I'll tell her that you liked it," Ayika said cheerily. "Make sure you make Maolin and Xinfei eat some too so I can report back to her how everyone enjoyed it." Mrs Bao had a bad habit of giving out the household's food to people who passed by on the street. Food they could ill afford to lose.

The boys' mother nodded warmly if vacantly and slowly got up out of her chair to place the little bundle up on a rather sparse shelf. Ayika could never really blame Xinfei for constantly seeking a big payout in one of his many schemes. Or for his distrust in the government after the fate of his father. The three of them said their goodbyes, even if Xinfei's was only a grunted murmur, and left. The door shut on Mrs Bao settling back into her spindly chair by the little window.

As they climbed up and neared the edge of the Bed, the path up the old bank was more steps than plank-bridge as it was below. These crude stairs shifted materials every few paces as scrap-wood and pilfered street cobbles all did their part to climb the winding route through the rough buildings stilted against the rising bank. Here two houses borrowed structural support from the vaulted pilings of a drainage aqueduct that ran above on its way to the River Reformed. They were squeezing through the resulting gap when Ayika heard a voice.

"Hey! Xiaobao!"

Xinfei's brother casually looked around to see where this hailing had originated from. Such an event was not all that unusual. People liked to talk to Xiaobao. Beside her, Xinfei hunched his bony shoulders even more. Not many people ever called out for him. Ayika jokingly bumped him with her hip to get him to lighten up and stop moping. It seemed to work, at least he now had a wistful smile twisting his lips.

A young man dressed like a laborer was lightly jogging down the crude stairs. He stopped in front of Xiabao and automatically raised a finger to push his grey headband back up on his forehead. He was of Kingdoms heritage but his skin-tone and features indicated an origin far to the south of the Impenetrable City. Likely his family had come as refugees during the Hundred Year War. Many people in the Bed had.

"Hey, Bao," he began. "I heard you were right there at the harbor fire couple nights ago. What did you see? The whole place looks like it's still smoking. Is Gaoli done for?"

Xiaobao waved one large callused hand. "Yu, come on. These owner guys all prepare for stuff. Mister Gaoli's got one of those bets which pays him out if he needs to rebuild from fire. Us crews are going to be unloading again tomorrow. Just see." Ayika could not remember ever seeing this guy before in her life but somehow Xiaobao managed to pin a name to every face he came across. Down here more people knew him than knew Port Master Seiran. Even more had known of his father.

Yu wrinkled his mouth in displeasure. "So that Gaoli's going to be all fine and dandy, huh? I heard he'd been smuggling in Fire Nation machines past customs. Also heard that the fire might have been lit by some Islanders themselves. Like Gaoli had been trying to cut someone out of the pay loop and they got testy," he said fishing for their opinion on his theory.

Ayika narrowed her eyes, feeling dangerous terrain ahead. After all, they knew a good deal more about that night than they were supposed to. They had been at ground zero. Xinfei opened his mouth but Xiaobao spoke first and had fewer instincts for concealment. "What? No! The Islander wasn't who lit the fire. It was an accident! I think. I mean the flames were acting weird and when that Public Safety looking bender guy showed up to-"

Xinfei elbowed his overly honest big brother but Yu's eyes were already wide. He quickly looked around before leaning in. "I heard some of that stuff but I thought Guang was pulling my leg! I mean he got it from some guy in a drink-house late that night. People are saying things have been weird the last few days. You think the Islanders could be hexing us? Everyone knows foreigners have stronger magic." He now noticed Ayika with her pointedly foreign features. "It's a shame your people's Aka of the Bed is gone. We could use some of that power on our side. Hey, what do you think of that Mama Mua up near the wall? She's one of yours, right? I heard she's a healer but does the other spirit-stuff as well."

Ayika crossed her arms. "The Islanders aren't hexing you. All this panic's doing is covering up things that might actually be happening. If you want to be safer then stop hanging out in drink-houses when your should be sleeping."

Yu pouted a bit at Ayika's lack of showmanship and general absence of magic. "That Aka lady was better. Maybe I'll look into Mama Mua. I hear a rumor she might be a bender too and I haven't ever seen any tribal bending!"

Some people only ever heard what they wanted to hear. In fact, this guy seemed intent on establishing himself as Xiaobao's best friend right here and Xiaobao was of such a nature that he would have probably been fine with being amicably trapped forever in the middle of this path. Xinfei and Ayika, on the other hand, had appointments to keep. They exchanged a look. Falling into familiar old patterns they began to make excuses, rapidly playing off each other as they smoothly pushed past so Yu did not get a chance to say a single word more and did not notice until a few moments later that the three had vanished behind a verbal smokescreen. By the time he realized they were gone for good the three had climbed up the winding way and snaked between the last of the immigrant housing until they emerged at the former river's edge under that battered stone arch onto a street of the city proper.

However, leaving the Bed did not change the charged urban atmosphere Ayika felt from the people she passed. As they made their way over the canals of the town she noticed that the normal crowds in the streets were antsy. Out of the corner of her eye she saw people fingering charms on their wrists and the crudely scrawled spells scrolls wrapped around their belts. Nor was Yu the last person to approach Xiaobao. Two more young men called out to the tall Bao boy to confirm what they had already heard around town. Xinfei might grumble that these people were just using his brother as a sounding board for their own fantasies but Ayika saw how Xiaobao's ernest attention and solid presence provided them a measure of comfort, even if he intentionally said as little as possible about the actual situation. Some people were just who you looked to when there was a crisis, and there were signs of a crisis brewing.

It was almost enough to make Ayika think there actually had been a curse laid on the town. She shook her head. Her grandmother would have smacked her with a wooden spoon. It was true that spirits at the edge of the veil to the other world could be entreated by the wise to invisibly influence the mind or body, but no person could have enough power to affect such a large scale as rumor was claiming. The Impenetrable City was not a spirit oasis where the line between worlds was thin and ephemeral. The City liked its walls strong. Those spirits that spent the power to cross over usually kept to themselves according to grandmother. Not that anyone but a gifted few could see them.

All these rumors were just people making themselves nervous. However, this explanation was not any less dangerous in so large and tightly packed of a metropolis.

All this anxious commotion on the street was giving Ayika a headache. As they walked past the long-shuttered government River Temple, she rubbed the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed and watched the colored circles bloom into existence as her fingers pressed against her eyelids. However, it was not safe to be without sight when walking down an Impenetrable City street. People had died for much less. So she opened her eyes and squinted up into the bright morning light as she tried to ignore how her wavering vision made the roofs' curved eaves shed their shadows into crawling forms like vaporous lizards. But at least by now the three of them had reached their destination. Ayika pressed forward ahead of her friends and opened the door of this establishment.

As soon as they stepped in a bored female voice began reciting, "Greetings, welcome to Mrs Anyakya's Super Best Tribal Wash. Our cleaning secrets handed down from the spirits themselves insure your belongings will get as clean as polar ice. How may I help you today."

The teenage girl droning this memorized pitch from behind the counter was Water Tribe sure enough. In fact she had her hair done up in old-fashioned traditional loops and was wearing a dress with an inordinate amount of white fur trim like an arctic princes. However, the fur actually looked to be fake, just white thread, and Ayika was sure that traditional northern clothes were not supposed to hug the body that tightly. Really tightly in places. The girl herself was propping her face up with a fist against her chin and her elbow on a small statue of the Golden Toad as her mouth worked up in down in the rhythm of chewing gum. Ayika was seized with a brief urge to slap her for that contraband before she remembered that she was not at the school, not that she could have followed through with the impulse there either.

She also remembered why she was here. "Yes. Hello. I think I might have an appointment to speak with Mrs Anyakya? I was told that..." She took a breath to remember the chain of transmission her mother had explained to her. "...that my mother Maekayae had spoken to Kya who had spoken to Mrs Anyakya's sister's daughter Amishiq who said that I could come in today."

The girl behind the counter continued to look at Ayika for a moment. Then she lazily turned her eye on Xinfei and Xiaobao who were awkwardly standing at the other end of the room near the door. She slowly stood up. "Just a moment." She walked over to a curtain covered doorway and stuck her head through. "Hong! There's another here to be a counter girl! Go tell the boss!"

Ayika blinked rapidly as the girl's forward lean revealed just how tight that dress was in the back. Belatedly she remembered to reach over lightly smack Xinfei on the arm for looking. At least she assumed he was looking. Then she realized that this was the job she was applying for. Well, at least she saw what her mother meant about this job giving her more opportunities to meet men.

The employee came back behind the counter and said, "She'll see you in a sec." With that she settled back onto the stool to resume her gum chewing.

Despite that reassurance, there did not seem to be any immediate action brewing from behind that curtain so Ayika looked around the small storefront to amuse herself. It seemed that whoever had decorated this place had just swept though some closets in the Bed and nailed everything they found to the walls. There was an old fish spear, a carved oar, some seal-fur mittens, a beaded water-skin and a lot of small spirit idols. In fact, it looked like most of them had not even been properly desecrated. Well, that was just asking for trouble.

Before she could think any more about that there was the sound of a storm building deeper in the laundry. Whatever it was involved an awful lot of yelling. Then the curtain was swept aside and Mrs Anyakya strode out like a martial queen on her own parade ground. Anyakya had arrived in this city almost twenty years ago, just another young migrant seeking opportunity after the war. Since then, time had left its marks with grey streaks in her hair and lines around the corners of her mouth. However, power had left its mark as well. Anyakya, still a 'Mrs' five years after her husband's death, was perhaps the most influential member of the Tribes in this part of the city. In all Ba Sing Se only the benders of the Ice Maker family companies outstripped her. Certainly in Kuang Harbor she wielded indisputable power and prestige and this was clearly evident from the first moment you saw her. In that instant Ayika would have trusted this lady's shawl over any steel armor.

Mrs Anyakya strode over and managed to look down at Ayika despite a lack of any significant difference in their heights. "All right," she said. "Let's see what we've got."

"I-" Ayika began but Mrs Anyakya held up a finger. Apparently this was not the talking part of the interview. The boss began to slowly walk around Ayika while looking her up and down. She grabbed the back of Ayika's dress and pulled it back to press it against her sides. The motion moved Ayika's sleeve up a bit which exposed an ugly healing bruise from the night at the warehouse, which made the boss frown but say nothing. She circled around and squeezed Ayika's upper arm and then came to her front and bruskly brought her hands up and under much more sensitive areas.

"Woah!" Ayika said, as she jumped back, throwing an arm up in front of her chest. "Just what was that about?!"

Mrs Anyakya rolled her eyes at this young woman before her as she crossed her arms under her own considerable bosom. "Oh, save me your outrage. You know perfectly well why I'd think about hiring you instead of one of those boys you've got back there. What are they, boyfriends or friend-boys? You know, I don't care." She waved her hand. "Amishiq told me that you're supposed to have cleaning experience, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for."

Ayika thought quickly. She needed this job. Her family needed it. "I can also read and do my plusses and minuses rather well."

"And you can write?"

"...Yes."

Anyakya noticed her hesitation. "Which means yes as long as you're the only one who has to read it again. All right, that's better than most of my girls, but I've got my own notation system so it's rare that you'd need to read out of the saga of Shin Hutou." She stepped back. "Well, it's true that I was looking for a new girl when I put out the word, but this location's been nothing but problems lately. Hardly enough business to keep this genius behind me." She waved a thumb at the girl behind the counter.

"...Hey!" The girl replied belatedly.

The boss did not acknowledge this and instead shook her head at Ayika. "No, sorry girl. On top of everything else, this last week things've been unsettled all from here to the Middle Wall. Everyone's angry and now I hear people might be coming down sick. I'm not sure what's going to go down but if trouble is brewing then I can't afford to be taking on new staff. Check back in a month if you're still looking."

That was not good. Ayika knew that the family could not afford for her to be out of work for nearly that long. Whatever the outfit, Mrs Anyakya's businesses were better than whatever else Ayika was likely to find hiring in Kuang Harbor.

"Um, wait! I worked for two years in the Middle Ring at a school. I know all the proper manners and can class up my accent. I also know enough about the Islanders to deal with them really well on a personal level." That last was not strictly true, but if she was truly becoming friends with Mizumi then any question she had could find an answer to any question she might have quickly enough.

However, these attempts did not impress Mrs Anyakya.

"Islanders?" She snorted. "Troubles with them are half the problem on people's mind. Don't need any more of that. And as for poshing it up, a good bit of what I am selling at my places is the allure of the exotic savage. No one's ever going to believe you're an Inner Ring lady, so you might as well own up and not pretend. If they're going to disrespect you anyway, might as well make a few coins off the so called tribal traditions." She turned and began to head towards the entrance to the back of the shop, dismissing Ayika's presence without another word.

Ayika's hands clenched at her side. "Yeah?! Well at least I know about the culture you're making into a joke. And I know better than to hang up a stranger-repelling totem up in a freaking business!"

Anyakya stopped and turned to look back at her. She followed Ayika's angry eyes up to the small spirit idols suspended from the walls. "Those are just decorations, all deactivated and nothing to get all superstitious about."

Now it was Ayika's turn to roll her eyes. She walked over and jabbed a finger up at a stone fish leaping over a mountain carved out of bone. Her gesture also included a snarling and heavily toothed forest creature's head made of driftwood. "Yeah, most of the idols are bashed or defanged. But these couple never got touched since the shaman made them. When did you put these up and when did this location start having business problems?" Even if it was not a wise move, after being judged and groped only to be turned down burning bridges felt good. " _Let's see who made who feel stupid,_ " she thought.

The owner swept over and shoved Ayika out of the way, squinting up at the idols on the wall. "Damn it all. I thought I saw Inuksuq's widow flee out of this place after she spotted something. Never knew what she was on about. And if the Tribal housekeepers start staying away then damn sure others are going to get the same idea. Oh, I could just kill Fu right now!"

Xinfei spoke up from the back of the shop in tones of mild disbelief. "You trusted a guy named Fu to deal with Water Tribe spirit charms?"

A dangerous finger jabbed out at him from across the room. He clamped his mouth closed. Anyakya said, "I've got no idea who you are, local boy, so you can shut it right now." She turned back to Ayika who had her arms crossed and a look of smug satisfaction. Some of that satisfaction melted away as the matronly mogul moved nearer. "All right, girl. You've got my attention. Who are you again?"

"Um, well." Ayika began, suddenly a bit cowed. "See my mother is Maekayae and my father is Kadat son of Makon of the..."

"Wait, wasn't Kadat the child of Aka the Witch?"

Ayika sputtered, "Grandma?" The indignation was reflexive. She had heard that nickname before, but never from a person of the Tribes, at least not that brazenly.

"Ha ha!" Anyakya's laugh was loud and forceful, and betrayed much more cheerfulness than had been evident from her person. "You're Aka's grandbrat? Well, that explains a thing. Maybe even two." She looked closely at Ayika, this time inspecting deep into her eyes instead of her figure. Ayika was not really sure which made her feel more naked.

"I might have something for you after all. Come with me. We're going for a walk."

...


	23. Charlatans

...

Mrs Anyakya had made a big deal of leaving for their mystery destination immediately, but by the time she finished delivering a new set of instructions to her workers in the laundry's rear Xinfei was starting to doze off leaning against the wall in a corner. Ayika just tried to stand still in the middle of the shopfront and resist the urge to start throwing things at the counter girl's incessant gum-aided mastication. Xiaobao had slid into some sort of meditative torpor as he gazed out through the window slats and Ayika could not tell what he was thinking. But when Mrs Anyakya finally reappeared she simply rushed past them out the front door without a word and Ayika was forced to bolt after her. Hopefully, the Bao brothers managed to get their limbs in order and follow.

Anyakya had begun talking even before Ayika managed to fall into step beside her. Apparently the washing mogul operated under the belief that it was everyone else's responsibility to hear what she was saying and she made no allowances for people having to catch up. Wherever they were going, she quickly left the street to stride down a small side path squashed between two plaster building walls. Here the paving stones fit very roughly together and between them heavily trodden grass somehow struggled on without direct sunlight.

The laundry owner continued her ongoing commentary. "If you can quiet these workers of mine from getting so worried and superstitious then you'll be worth your weight in silver. I've actually had three people try to say they were too sick to come in today? Like I don't have a finger on the pulse of this town. The only sickness going around is people worrying themselves ill with all these rumors of imaginary angry spirits. Just another scam for the rubes." They exited from that narrow alley canyon to a narrow ledge or walkway alongside the canal that backed against the wash shop. A long open-top canalboat was unloading tied bundles of clothes by the tens and fifties.

Ayika knew Mrs Anyakya had a reputation as a very practical woman and very few people in Kuang Harbor were what could be called religious. All the same, Ayika had never heard one of the People so clearly deny the existence of the spirits. As they climbed up the steps of a small arching bridge over a water channel Ayika looked at her new employer's eyes and saw the calculation of a fierce survivalist who catalogued everything and everyone for how they fit into the pattern. Another look back over Ayika's own shoulder confirmed that the brothers had at least managed to keep up with her.

The older woman continued without breaking her rapid walking pace. "I'll find a formal position for you as a counter girl somewhere. I can cut Eknasa down to half time. She thinks I haven't noticed that bump growing in her belly but I suppose now is as good a time as any to stop ignoring it. If she didn't make a note of where she left the one who did that to her, well I know a whole stack of good neighborhood boys who can't be too choosy for a bride for one reason or another."

She carried on, "Rumor infects this town like shipworms. Can you believe my workers are saying ridiculous things like the employer should provide a money assurance against sickness? As if that's my concern! They just want a handout so they can go get fleeced by that vile Mama Mua, the so-called healer. I'm sure she'll indulge their delusion that spirits are making them sick. As long as they keep paying." Anyakya gave a very unladylike snort. "There may be a lot I don't like about the North but at least benders there didn't charge."

Ayika felt that by this point she should have contributed something to this one sided conversation. They were rapidly racing off though the back alleys of the town and she still had no idea where they were going. "Mam," she said. "Er, what is it exactly that you'll be wanting me to do?"

Anyakya did not bother slowing or looking at her. They abruptly crossed onto a main street other pedestrians on the path parted around her. "If you managed to learn half of anything from your Gran then you should know more about the old stories and charms than these ruffians I employ. Just tell the workers who it's you're related to and explain why their superstitious interpretations aren't what's happening. Those of the tribes will recognize some details of what you're saying and the kingdomers think all tribal ladies are witches anyway so they'll trust you too. Then draw some signs on the walls in chalk or something."

She shrugged. "I really don't care what lies you tell them as long as they don't catch you at it. Just give me calm. I'll give you a bonus stipend on top of salary, and you may give me a bit of peace while this city is losing its collective mind." So she meant for Ayika to be a fake shaman. Ayika was not sure how to feel about that.

Now they passed back onto a different street and over another bridge. Ayika fell back a few steps to whisper to Xinfei who was still trailing behind. "She's really worried about people freaking out over the Islanders. Her people also think there's something magical going on. Maybe those people in the Masks actually are involved in some sort of spell or curse against people?"

"Come on," Xinfei said. "Don't get caught up in your own hype. Your headmaster up at your school did the same thing kind of thing as her. Always made you staff go to temple out of some show to ritual. He made you get receipts! Doesn't mean there's any spirit stuff going on. Just good employee management and public relations."

Their strange party now passed by one of the government run temples near the center of the town. Unsurprisingly there was not a line outside it. More surprisingly, the priest came running out of it to stomp out the smoldering fringe of his robe against the stone steps. He was cursing in a very unpriestly way about uncooperative candles.

Xinfei gestured over at him as they crossed past his smoky display. "I present another example of why no one goes to the city temples anymore for spirit help. Look, that place is completely empty!"

Ayika twisted her neck to look back. The doorway was only available for a second but she saw figures moving inside vaguely in the dim light of the temple. She frowned. "I see plenty of folks. Maybe people are starting to trust government priests again." Anyakya's workers had something right. Something about this city felt unsettled. Like a distant blaze before the fire-bells began to ring. If there were people in the state temples then others could feel it as well even if Xinfei couldn't.

"I think a more likely explanation is your eyes going bad. Hey! Look over there!" Xinfei grabbed at her shoulder. He pointed off ahead down the street past Anyakya. "It's those student nationalist guys. I told you I was going to meet with them today."

Ayika recognized the three university boys. The night of the fire had soured her to their association. No matter how harmless they looked or how ridiculous they sounded they were involved in something dark and dangerous. Xinfei hadn't seen when those ordinary men in the warehouse put carved wood over their faces and suddenly were able to fight on even footing with a trained earthbender. That was not natural. To him the Masks were just thugs in one of a thousand secret societies. But after everything Ayika had heard and seen, the university boys' attempts to agitate the populace against the Islanders just seemed a whole lot less amusing. Someone from a position of power was using them. The Masks had a greater agenda. And one of those Masks had killed Lizhen.

She frowned. "I'm not sure you should be still talking to them. We don't know who's giving them orders. You've seen how they've been riling people up, it's not worth helping them cause trouble."

Xinfei looked affronted. "Those guys aren't the ones making people angry. Sure, they're idiots but... People are already angry. They're sick of cheap imports and Islander machine run factories putting craftsmen out of work. The king's giving foreign merchants more help than citizens. That's why those guys get away with being out here with those posters and signs. The people want someone to do something."

He actually sounded like he was sympathetic to those guys and Ayika could scarcely believe that. "The people? Xinfei, they burnt down your job! They're with the Masks! There's something dark going on that I don't fully understand but trust me and do what I say. Those boys are trouble and I say don't go near them."

They'd now stopped in the middle of the street, leaving Anyakya to build up a considerable lead. Xinfei was growing angry as well. He had an expression of hurt disbelief. "Come on, you know me. You were the one who wanted to find out who killed your professor guy! I was helping you! You say that the nationalists killed Lizhen because you got a funny feeling and they both wear masks. Well, stuff also points that islander Miohuito so maybe I say you should say away from Mizumi!"

He bit his lip and turned away as if he wanted to stop but then he turned back. "Her dad was at the crime scene, and wouldn't say why! Ma'er was threatening the professor and then he was hunting the Masks so I think they could actually be on our side. You said that your professor was into all that magic stuff from other cultures, maybe he made those weird masks you insist are creepy." There was a pressure here that had been building up for a while, but under it was a hint of pleading.

Ayika couldn't believe what she was hearing. The accusation against Mizumi riled her the most. "None of that makes sense! On our side? In case you weren't hearing right, that guy in the Mask at the warehouse was the man who cornered us in the alley! You set him on fire once! They were talking about being against all foreigners not just Fire Nation and, as people are keen to remind me, I look pretty foreign!" She felt like cursing. Her points were jumbled too.

Xinfei shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in order. "That's not what they meant! Water Tribe folks aren't doing anything!"

Xiaobao finally worked up the nerve to step in between the two of them. "Hey guys, calm down."

Ayika was sick of arguing. She shoved past Xinfei. "Go then. Go join up with your protest boys!"

"Well, maybe I will!" Xinfei opened and closed his mouth a few times more looking as if he wanted to end this conversation with a more eloquent parting line. But he could think of nothing so he angrily hunched his shoulders and turned. Ayika saw him begin to walk down the street but Mrs Anyakya was getting further and further away. She did not have time to chase after him.

Xiaobao was conflicted. Ayika was quickly walking in one direction while his brother plodded off in the other. But Xiaobao made his decision and caught up to Ayika in a few quick strides from his much longer legs. However, she shook her head at him. "I'm fine," she said. "I know you've not got work today but there's no need to stick to me. Anyakya's not likely to leave me unsupervised till nightfall. I'll talk to you tomorrow about what I learn tonight from Mizumi and Lili. Go, he needs you."

Xiaobao put his hand on her shoulder. "He's trying to help you. And you aren't the only one who wants to feel like they've got their own control in this city. Just be careful with that spirit stuff Anykaya wants to do. People are nervous. Don't lie to them." With that he turned and headed back to where he had last seen his brother. Ayika rushed forward and hoped that Mrs Anyakya had not been talking all this time.

She managed to fight through the crowd of other pedestrians just in time to hear Anyakya finish a speech she had apparently never ceased giving, "...is the last of what you need to know. Now if you're as smart as you think you are then I won't need to repeat myself."

Great, Ayika thought. It was her first day on the job as a shaman.

...

Zhangyi paced in the narrow isle between the outdoor tables of the steamed-bun shop that served as the student nationalists secondary revolutionary headquarters. Chonglong was seated on a bench and leaning back against a support post and seemed a bit more satisfied than usual. Jiang had covered a corner of their small table with an open book and a sheet of paper as he carefully brushed a few more precise characters down. He actually appeared to be doing schoolwork. Chonglong glanced around the street enough to spot Xinfei approaching them though he declined to further open his heavily lidded eyes.

Xinfei heard him say, "Hey, Zhangyi, I thought you said you were waiting for that Tu guy. That wasn't the dockworker boy was it?"

Jiang did not look up from his brushwork. "No, that kid's name was Xin-something, I think."

Zhangyi at least turned and met Xinfei's eyes. He flashed his customary winning smile as he strode over to greet him. This greeting was briefly interrupted by Zhangyi bumping into the back of another restaurant patron who glared up with most of a bun sticking out of his stubble covered mouth like a baby's pacifier. Once the student managed to extricate himself from the restaurant without starting any more feuds he clapped Xinfei on the arm. "Good to see you my friend! No, Chonglong, this is not the man I was waiting for but he is a welcome sight all the same. And look, his brother's here too! See, our forces are multiplying already!"

Xinfei turned to see Xiaobao suddenly standing behind him. The slightest motion of the head was enough to communicate their respective thoughts. There was nothing Xinfei could do if his brother felt like following along. Truth be told he was not entirely sure what Xiaobao did for recreation these days on his few times off work. It was not gaming or drinking or even girls as far as Xinfei had seen sign of. So he simply smiled back at Zhangyi and said, "Yeah. So what's the scheme you teased us with yesterday? Something splashy for those Initiated? Do we get to hear what the big plan you cooked up is?"

Zhangyi was clearly excited to have another audience to share his brainchild with. He led the two Bao brothers over to the little communal table set up on the street outside the restaurant. Such a space should rightfully be filled up with other eaters but Chonglong's big frame and glares seemed to have been sufficient to claim it for private use. As the Baos moved in close, Jiang sighed and carefully cleaned off his ink-brush as he saw that all studious action was going to be impeded for the near future.

Zhangyi, the sometimes leader, began. "There is a plan indeed. I received words of support down from the highest levels of our organization's secret leadership. We're going to lead a protest march against the merchant families of the Middle Ring! We are going to cross the Lower Ring, spreading the word of how traitorous merchants like that Gaoli are betraying our country. You saw those smuggled machines in the warehouse wall. We will gather supporters along the way and by the time we get to Gaoli's house itself it will be blisteringly clear to everyone in the city how the people feel about what Gaoli has done! That merchant will find his hard won political connections leaning away from him and other merchants will think twice about emulating his actions less they incur the same bad publicity!"

A march. In his thoughts Xinfei breathed a faint sigh of mental relief. Despite what he had said, all Ayika's concern's about these three's involvement with her boss's murderer had made him nervous. But the students were harmless. They just wanted to walk around and make up chants. And who knew? Some government figures might actually care that the people of the city were fed up with special treatment for those getting rich off foreign loyalties.

"That sounds great," he said. It also sounded doomed, but safely doomed.

"Yeah!" Chonglong said with a grin. "We'll ruin Gaoli! The order from on high says to make an example of him. And I'm sure he won't be the last. We'll harass each of those merchants until they have to abandon the foreigners or shut down their business. One by one." He said the word merchants like he was pronouncing something foul and profane.

Jiang was a less combative soul. Now he just sighed and worked at checking that the ink on essay he had been writing was dry. "Do you guys remember when the 'orders from on high' were just to put up threatening posters? Or even remember further back, before the movement had all this mysterious support from all corners and it was just us and the other students? Deciding what was best ourselves? Sometimes I miss that."

That was another reference to changing leadership of the nationalists. There was definitely something going on behind the scenes. Xinfei tried leaning over towards Jiang to ask him. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

However, Chonglong was quicker to respond. "What does ancient history matter? Tonight we are taking the movement public! No more secret membership! Everyone will take part! And we will be the leaders for the newly awakened consciousness."

Zhangyi had the same infections grin on his face. "Tonight the city wakes up. Tonight we march!"

Behind Xinfei, Xioabao was worried that his brother seemed to be sharing that eager smile. An afternoon finding people who were annoyed with foreign imports and Islanders dwelling in the city should be easy enough. However, the real question would come when the sun began to dip low. Who knew how this was going to end?

...

Light in the Exclusion always felt like sunset. So many of the exterior pillars and freestanding ritual gates were painted in holy red that when the sun began its nightly dying display the burning orange brush it painted across the darkening land did not have much to do in Fire Nation quarter. Mizumi stood in front of her house glanced up at the sun now. It lay glowing low in the sky, enlarged by the smoky haze that boiled over the Impenetrable City's walls.

One of the household servants gestured again to her waiting carriage and Mizumi sighed, consenting to climb up the carefully placed footstool and slide into her seat. This leg of the journey was only from their house in the Exclusion to the harbor tram station but her father was taking no chances after the warehouse fire and the accusations of Public Safety against them. Their carriage would be accompanied fore and aft by several burley men of his employ as well as a pretty military firebender lady from the Trade Mission that father had managed to convince Representative Tailang to briefly lend them as accompaniment.

Mizumi had not been hesitant to tell her father that these precautions were excessive. In the sixteen years of the Trade Mission in this city there had not been a single attack on citizens of the Nation. Well, no official attacks. There had been a few incidents which the Ambassador had without much cajoling reclassified as self-inflicted harm. If you started carelessly firebending while drunk in a Kingdoms brothel then a knife to the side was as good as you could expect. But her father had been hearing none of these reasonable assertions of her probable safety. The fact that he had finally noticed that Mizumi had snuck out of the house many times in the last few days since Teacher Lizhen's death did not help her argument.

From the carriage's other bench Tetzamatl Miohuito sighed at his daughter's sour expression. "These enhanced measures are only a temporary precaution. I am sure that things will quickly return to normal and you can resume attending the school. You did like it, didn't you? Even after all that...unpleasantness."

"Yes. It was a good place." Mizumi said. But she had her own unanswered questions; questions which had been building pressure for days. Then she suddenly struck. "Why were you waiting outside the school in the carriage that night? Why were you talking with Teacher Lizhen?"

Miohuito flinched at his daughter's sharply inquisitorial tone. "I had corresponded many times with the man. He was a very strong voice for the Kingdoms citizens in the reformist faction, you know that."

"That is not what I meant and _you_ know that! What happened that night? I have been trying to ask you for days but you have never been around the house!" Mizumi tried to govern the emotion in her voice but it was difficult.

He sighed. "I know. There are political matters I can't yet worry you with. Chen wrote me that day about...Well, I suppose it doesn't matter what now. I will never know. He was very vague, it sounded like he wanted to warn me about something, not saying what, though he was very specific about the time I come visit him. After moonrise, strange man. He was probably going to say that our opponents in the conservatives were getting bolder and more dangerous. As they quickly demonstrated." Miohuito suddenly realized that he was rambling on about a great deal more information than his daughter deserved.

His expression darkened. "Not that I have anything to answer to you about. You have disobeyed me three times in four days! First you stayed late at the school over some foolish essay and exposed yourself to the danger there, then you twice left the Exclusion despite my express command to stay safe!"

Mizumi noticed that he had missed noticing one of her excursions with Ayika for all the good it did her. "Technically, you just asked me if I _could_ remain in the Exclusion." She murmured softly. "And I did get permission to attend the funeral with Lili Gaoli."

Her father gripped his fist with his other hand. "Mizumi...!" He took a deep breath and calmed down. "At least the Gaolis are one of the few allies we still have. If I told your grandfather what you had been getting up to he would beat you dark as a Tribal."

You do not know half of what I am up to, father, Mizumi said silently. "Or he would congratulate me on conducting recognizance operations and recruiting allies." She smiled, thinking about telling the story of her investigation with Ayika in Granfather's preferred soldierly speech. Grandfather was not one for delicate phrasing.

"Allies? Plural? Who else have you been meeting with besides Lili Gaoli?"

Mizumi quickly swallowed. She would never have expected anyone to pick up on such a small detail but she had gotten her mind from somewhere after all. "I was talking about the Gaolis, Father." She said in a hastily affected exasperated tone. "You _just_ said they were our most important remaining allies."

Miohuito narrowed his eyes with well-earned suspicion of everything his teenage daughter said but fortunately they were arriving at the tram station. Mizumi did not think she had ever been so happy at the prospect of having her bones shaken out of her body by that rickety ancient contraption powered by enchanted stone and Earth Kingdom benders. She thought to herself that when they reached the Gaoli residence she would have to quickly get Lili to cover for all her other outings with Ayika. The father and daughter made their way up the station steps as numerous suspicious eyes turned to look at them from the street below.

...


	24. March

...

"Aizhang Gaoli has been attempting to convince the King's ministers to let him expand his gas-lines, supposably for new street lamps. He wants to run pipes of flammable, explosive gas under all your houses! And why? Because he says that is what the Fire Nation does! He says that it's modernization! Well, I say he looks to no one's interest but his own! Money is his concern, not safety or loyalty!"

Xinfei had to admit that Zhangyi was on roll. A sizable crowd had joined them by now on their walk through these shaded evening streets of the Lower Ring. And many of those crowd members were sticking with the group despite the fact that they had walked enough miles that Xinfei's feet felt every aching paving stone through his thin sandals. This was the narrowest part of the ring but that did not make it small. Not having a tram passport, he had performed this walk across the Lower Ring many times but it was always more tiring when faced with the thought of a late return trip. The sky still glowed red in the west but here between the walls night had already fallen.

Student Jiang seemed to be suffering even more. The portly young man threw many depressed looks at his bag full of books he had found himself lugging all this way. Xiaobao had offered to carry it for him but Jiang had stammered that it was unnecessary. The rich kid probably thought Xiaobao would steal it.

Zhangyi and Chonglong, on the other hand, were high on the energy of the city. While Zhangyi crafted rhetorical appeals to each shopkeeper locking up and cook walking home, Chonglong targeted his message to the young men just beginning their night. One group heard of how all the industries would improve once domestic workers did not have to compete with the cheap goods of foreign imperialists. The other heard of how right and glorious it was to fight to defend their homeland. They all heard of the rich merchant Gaoli who smuggled in vile machines under the nose of bribed officials; machines designed to replace Kingdom citizens. A merchant associated with an insidious foreigner who wanted to take the iconic tram system whose vaulted tracks knitted the sprawling metropolis together and replace it with a smoke-belching metal monstrosity. That foreigner who was suspected in the murder of a professor of the Royal University. The light from the lamps held by members of the crowd glinted in Zhangyi's eyes.

They were attracting quite a lot of attention. The dimming streets were beginning to fill with the curious and the angry. Frequently dormant survival instincts began to rear up in Xinfei's mind. They'd managed to not run into any guard patrols yet but that could not last. In any case they were going to reach the gate to the Middle Ring soon and there was no way that this rowdy a crowd was going to be allowed through. Xiaobao gave him a significant look and Xinfei nodded. He moved over to speak to Jiang. "The guards are going to break us up soon. They have to, don't they?"

Jiang's cheeks were red and he was breathing through his mouth. If the walk was annoying for Xinfei it was much worse for someone who had never experienced a callus. Jiang said, "Not necessarily. Guards are citizens too, they have the same grievances we have. Our group is just walking, they'll find every excuse not to interfere with us." However, he was not exactly confident in this assessment.

There was a sudden sound of breaking wood from across the street. Xinfei whipped around to see members of their growing mob smashing the shutters of a shop that was attempting to close for the night. Xiaobao yelled out, "Hey!" in an attempt to stop this but no one listened. A few other men were shouting that this owner was cooperating with the foreigners. Others of the group rushed over to pull the vandalizers back but just as many ran to assist them in destroying any Fire Nation made products. If shops here in this part of the Lower Ring were carrying imports then their group must have gotten very close to the Merchant's Wall and therefor the guard-post. The roofs here overhung the street enough that Xinfei had somehow lost sight of that mountain range of a landmark. To loose track of the walls in the City was a feat in itself.

"I think the guards are going to run out of excuses very quickly." Xinfei said to Jiang who's mouth was working silently in indecision as he waved fruitlessly at the tussle outside the beleaguered shop. "My advice is when they come, run fast."

However, Zhangyi managed to regain control of this march. Chonglong was at his side grabbing figures to shove them back into the middle of the street as Zhangyi leapt up onto an unstable stack of empty crates. "I feel your anger, people! These imported goods are a vile symbol! But did this shopkeep let the foreigners in? No! Those who did live in the next ring! The grubbing merchants who handed out the keys to our City! So now we march to remind them that the people have not forgotten their crimes! We march together!"

Slowly, like a many headed creature awakening from a fitful dream the crowd began to resume its directed walk deeper into the city. There were now well over fifty people and more were filtering in out of side streets. Chonglong suddenly appeared at Jiang's side, panting but exhilarated. The more cautions Jiang said to his burly friend, "I think this guy may be right. This march has grown bigger than I expected. I'm not sure what Zhangyi was visualizing but this is beyond it. We should be considering disentanglement strategies."

Chonglong slapped Xinfei hard on the back as he replied to Jiang. "Don't let your wharf-rat friend worry. This march has full support of the Society. Look!" He pointed across the crowd. "That's Qiao and Gong from the meetings. There are others too. And some of them have to be the Initiated. We are protected. Tonight we get to make a show!" He grinned at Jiang. "And even if the Initiated decide not to show themselves, we are prepared to protect our own." He looked around before flipping up part of his belt to reveal the hilt of a hidden knife tucked behind it.

Jiang jerked back, "Chonglong! What are you-?"

He was drowned out by a growing swell of voices. From his position at the front of the parade Zhangyi had begun a chant and it was being picked up.

"We are the City! Foreigners can't buy us! We are the City! Expose those who sell us!"

It was to this thumping beat that they crossed their final turning of the street and the close-packed buildings parted into the empty square before the massive gate to the Middle Ring. The wall appeared with frightening immediacy. All at once it stood thirty meters away and stretched out in each direction like the end of the world. Above, it reached up into the infinite night sky. Directly across this square, the wall bulged out with an integrated castle around the huge gateway. That gate alone was large enough that a ship could have sailed through it and a hundred lighted windows gleamed from the guard posts on each side of it. As the marchers strode across the empty flagstone before it the volume of their chanting lessened and their pace slowed as they were cowed by the weight of the stone.

Xinfei breathed a sigh of relief. This is where it would end. Thinking back it had been an exciting evening, if a little nerve-wracking. They had made a big show of force, demonstrating that the people had suffered enough of those Islander infiltrators. Now they could go home. This late the guards would be inspecting passports and no self respecting greenback would let a crowd like this pass no matter what their certification. However, Zhangyi was still walking in front of the group at an unflagging clip and by his sheer confidence drew the rest of the protesters with him.

Xinfei saw guards standing on each side of the gate and more peering down from viewports above. But no one moved to block their way. No earthbenders closed the gate's stone teeth. Beside him, Jiang sweated and Chonglong thumbed at his belt before resolving himself and pushing his way forward to reach Zhangyi. Zhangyi himself had come to a halt at the very lip of the long Gate tunnel. The marchers bunched up behind him and still none of the guard moved to drive them back. Across the the square behind them, local residents were filing out of inns and houses, peering into the dark at these protesters who's echoing chants still fitfully rang out.

Xinfei stood in the stationary crowd waiting for at any moment to hear the sounds of authoritative voices ordering dispersement. But none came. Then a shiver moved through the crowd and row by row they took a step forward. Forward towards the Middle Ring. They were entering the gate.

Beside him Jinag chuckled nervously. "See, what did I say? Nothing to worry about. I told you we have sympathizers everywhere."

Xinfei said nothing. Xiaobao was visibly nervous. Those guards had orders. Someone wanted this march to go through. Someone with rank or money had made sure they would not be obstructed. To what end he did not know, but now the protesters were gaining even more people as excited figures who had trailed behind before were now running across the square to join the impossible movement. They were enthusiastic, righteous and angry. And they were headed the Gaoli residence where Ayika might be. Xinfei knew he had to push ahead and warn her. Or maybe he needed to stay here. Maybe he could help maintain some level of control through Zhangyi and the other University students. Prevent this from getting even more out of hand. He didn't know, this all felt like some coded ritual in faith he did not understand.

Step by step he plunged into the long tunnel as its vaulted ceiling eclipsed the first few glimmers of stars above. Night had truly fallen.

...

In the hallway of her family mansion, Lili Gaoli wrung her hands as she fidgeted nervously outside the door to her father's audience room. Inside, she could hear the shouting continue.

"Frozen for the duration of the investigation?!" Her father roared out, his voice reverberating through the half-closed door. "Erliao, you motherless son of a pig, what is the meaning of this?!"

Another voice replied in a tone that tried to mirror the same ferocious affront but fell rather short in power. "It is a fairly standard measure in these situations. With the current climate the people need to see that the government is looking into the problem very carefully."

Her father was not tolerant of this explanation. "Seiran, I did not talk to you and if I did want to hear your voice I could just shove Erliao's hand up a dog's bum! Now I ask the Sub-Minister again, why do I have a missive here saying I must freeze all my commercial activity for an undefined length of time?!"

Lili knew that Port-Master Seiran would be tugging on his long black beard in anger while his other thumb repeatedly brushed his huge metal belt buckle of green and bronze as if he wished it was a sword-pommel. But she also knew her father would not care what this man thought. She had seen his eyes narrow when the servant came to tell him that the Harbor Master and the Sub-Minister of Poetry and Worthy Expression had arrived at their house for an unannounced social call. Any surprise contact from the government was never good, no matter how rich you were. Now Lili was sparing glances away from the slightly open audience room door to peer out the window that shielded view of the courtyard, sending out desperate wishes into the newly fallen night that the Miohuitos would not arrive on time. Islanders showing up to meet one of the leaders of the Conservative faction was the only thing that could make things worse.

Sub-Minister Erliao's voice was as smooth as always. Since the funeral in that fog he had recovered his equilibrium. "Peace, Aizhang. The government is very concerned about this despicable case of arson. In particular, why your warehouse was targeted. An agent at the scene found possible evidence the attack could have originated in the Exclusion itself. We can only moderate our grief by thanking whatever spirit caused the criminal to set his fire in a building so heavily insured against just that crime." The careful modulation betrayed no hidden implication and thus broadcast it loudly.

After a moment of silence Mister Gaoli gave a low belly laugh, deep and bitter. "So that's your game. Trade Representative Tailang is really scoring points against you is he? Using these cases of persecution and violence to get more concessions out of the King? So in retaliation you press down on Seiran and Public Safety to knock me out of the game for a bit, knowing that it's going to hurt Miohuito and the rest of the Exclusion. Tailang is still hoping to be named as the new ambassador isn't he? But you can threaten to make his tenure as Trade Representative look less than stellar by denying one of his largest traders his import connection." There was a pause here. Lili assumed her father was taking a puff from his pipe. "You know, I had wondered how those rumors of the Fire Nation burning down my place got started."

"Harmony and stability are my only concerns."

Gaoli gave a snort. "Harmony. It was not particularly harmonious when Professor Lizhen was killed in his office. Have your friends in green made any progress on _that_ investigation?"

Seiran burst out angrily. "Hey now! You can not accuse-!"

Something Lili could not hear cut him off. Now anger was beginning to creep into Erliao's voice. "As I have said before, I would never have wished such a thing on him and I resent the tones you are taking. Chen Lizhen's death was a tragedy, a mistake, even if such sorrow had been long predicted. His mystical sacrileges finally caught up to him. He had long been known to associate with unsavory characters; Fire sorcerers, shamans, and swamp witches. It was only a matter of time before one of his reckless contacts led him to harm."

Gaoli spoke again, but now with a bit of secret humor beneath his anger. "Yes, swamp witch. I think I may have heard that story. _All_ of that story." He was clearly needling Erliao about something.

This was fascinating information. Beneath Erliao's vitriol it sounded to Lili like he did indeed know Professor Lizhen very well. In particular when he listed undesirable associates Lili interpreted his tone to say that each example was a reference to a particular memory. And then there was some story about a witch? But before she could hear any more a female voice rang out down the hallway behind her hiding spot.

"Yun! Do be sure third daughter knows not to bother her father. She's always creeping around in a most unseemly way."

Lili turned to look behind her as the footman Yun bowed deeply to someone out of sight. From where Lili stood in the hallway to her father's audience room, the servant and the young lady could see each other clearly through an empty archway to the parlor room where the command had originated. However, Yun made no sign that he knew where Lili might be found. She smiled faintly to herself. She supposed that in Yun's customarily highly literal interpretation of his duties the fact that she had heard meant his task was already completed. Or perhaps he was just being nice to her. Lili had no desire to see her mother right now.

Liling Gaoli was currently settled down in the second parlor hard at work as usual on her poetry. Lili snorted to herself. If indeed this activity could be called poetry. Some years ago her mother had decided that Long Xun's " _Dream of Willows_ " was the pinnacle of the art and since then once a day she had sat down to recopy that six line poem. Supposedly some quirk of calligraphy would eventually allow a greater insight to the author's brilliance but Lili quietly suspected that her mother was simply frustrated by books where each page insisted on having new and different words. Lili's father Aizhang Gaoli was a brilliant and ambitions man. Liling was beautiful and her father had been rich. Lili was old enough to know how marriage worked. She was just lucky that her elder sisters' grand dowries had meant her own nuptials would by necessity of bookkeeping be delayed several years. That is, unless her father suddenly needed to make a new businesses friend who needed a good gift.

"And see that it stays that way!" Her father was yelling back behind the door.

"I will do what I can," said silver-tongued Erliao. "And do keep yourself safe. On our way here it seemed that the streets were particularly restless tonight. Apparently, there is some disturbance in the direction of the Lower Ring Gate."

Lili jumped when she heard the sound of the men in the audience room moving to leave. For a moment she prepared to scurry away from the door but then she remembered that no male guests would be exiting through the women's wing. Once again her peaceful night at home would be undisturbed. Yay.

Maneuvering her eye behind a gap in a carved window-screen she looked out through clear Island-made glass at the courtyard where the stone lanterns stood shining twice-over with their reflections in the long pools. Seiran and Erliao were making their way out to the main gate. Good riddance. And a hired carriage was pulling up beside theirs on the street. One with red uniformed men clinging to the back. Oh, the Miohuitos were here. Lili had actually forgotten them for a moment. She saw the two government men stop for a moment in their exit as they saw who had arrived.

Lili pursed her lips. Well, this should be interesting.

...

Daquan Chang heard the knock on the door of his Lower Ring apartment. He did not also need the pointed eyebrow raise from his wife across the room but he got that as well.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get it." He popped the last of the little dried plums that were his dessert into his mouth. He grunted as he got out of his battered chair. Where had the years gone? There was a time he'd run five miles in full armor. Now he repaired wooden shutters for a living and his hair was grey.

The knock at the door repeated. His wife spoke up. "Get it. It could be him back finally. Don't leave him outside."

"Well if it is him then you can start scolding him instead as soon as he gets in. Small wonder the boy's been staying away." Daquan reached the door before another knock came. He wondered if he would have to repaint, it sounded like whoever it was was rapping with some metal or a rock. As he undid the latch he was already talking. "I'm coming. Too late for decent visiting but I'm coming. I...Sir!" he exclaimed in surprise.

Daquan opened the door to see a man dressed in greens so dark that in this young night they blended into the background better than blacks. The visitor was slightly younger than Daquan but the scars on his cheeks and the grey at his temples showed that his life had been even more stressful than hanging shutters.

As soon as Daquan saw the visitor he reflexively stood straighter but the visitor nodded his head respectfully. "Mister Chang, I am sorry for coming to call so late. I hope you will forgive the rudeness." Even in submission the garden designer radiated power and control.

Daquan sputtered, "Of course Mister Ma'er. Not at all."

Behind him his wife spoke up, hope welling in her voice. "Is that Ma'er? Is he with-?"

"I'm going to ask him!" Daquan snapped. He turned back sheepishly to Ma'er. "I'm sorry sir."

Ma'er shook his head. "Daquan, just call me Douli. I think it's been long enough for that. But I have something to ask you. Has your son been back here in the last night or so?"

Daquan's face fell. "Oh. No, we thought Tian was sleeping over at his job with you again. We've not seen him since the day after that foreign ambassador's funeral. I was about to ask...You don't think that...?" He forced a smile onto his face and spoke louder for his wife's benefit as well as his own. "He probably went out with some friends and got drunk and is working up the courage to come back and tell you he spent all his wage. That or there's a girl somewhere. I'm telling you it's about time on that one."

Daquan's speech did not provoke much reaction on Douli Ma'er's face except for that he scowled and turned his head to glare back out into the indistinct night. The father leaned in closer. "Do you think it could have something to do with...you know." Ma'er raised an eyebrow. Daquan continued, "No disrespect, sir, er, Ma'er, er, Douli, but no one who knows you would believe you're completely out of the game. And my boy, well he's discreet but I have two decades of experience sniffing truth out of him. I know you have some game you're running and Tian's helping you. Does it have something to do with those people who just marched up through the ring tonight?"

Now it was Ma'er's turn to look surprised. "What marchers?"

Daquan gestured his head to the side. "My neighbor, Old Ma, came by a little bit ago and said that there was this whole group of people on the street, marching up from the harbor gate to the middle ring. Those, you know, those people who are all against the Islanders. Not that anyone is for them mind you, but folks don't have any cause to be telling the King of Kings what to do. Not seemly."

Now Ma'er was staring back in the direction of the Middle Ring gate as if he could see straight through all those miles of walls and roofs. "I had not heard anything about that. Damn it, if Tian is..."

Daquan took a step forward. He spoke softly so his wife could not hear back in the apartment behind him. "Is my boy in any danger? I mean, he's a man, he knows his own risks but...He's my only son."

Ma'er sighed. "It was his own idea, but I agreed to it. I...I'm afraid that I may have let him get too deep into..." He stopped and started again. "Every sign I can find indicates that your son is alive and out of hostile hands. However, he is also avoiding friendly hands. There's something I am missing. Something's going on that is so big I cannot see it in front of me."

Daquan nodded sagely. "You don't need Long Feng's wisdom to see that things are sliding into trouble. Fire Nation machines taking jobs. Royal ministers caring more about their own reputation than for the Kingdom. And now protesters are going to try and bust up some merchant named Ligao or something in the Middle Ring."

Ma'er growled, "Gaoli? Him again? Damn it, that could be bad." Then he spoke up in a formally courteous tone as he projected past Daquan's shoulder into the apartment. "My regards to Hong. I'm afraid I must go. As soon as I find your son I will send him home."

The supposed gardener slunk back off the doorstep and onto the dirt side-street. Then he thrust his hands to the side and the earth opened up with magic to let him drop down out of sight. A second later there was no trace of where the sudden pit had been. Daquan felt a faint smile twitch at the edge of his lips. A Dai Li never truly retired. Whoever was troubling his son was about to be a very unfortunate person. Hopefully, the years of gardening had not lead Ma'er to forget any of the one hundred and fifty-two effective tortures. Daquan had personally been partial to number ninety three in his old job work but it was hard to get the right seeds these days.

He shut the door and latched it behind him.

...


	25. Disorder

...

Mizumi saw her father freeze when he came face-to-face with Minister Erliao at the front gates of the Gaoli compound. The Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression looked to be in a better mood than he had been at Teacher Lizhen's funeral. Mizumi did not trust that cheer. The minister was walking with a thick, bearded man who Mizuni recognized from some of the parties her father had hosted in the Exclusion though she could not remember what his government title was. It was something to do with the ships or customs. In any case if he was with Erliao then he was likely one of the conservative faction and thus an enemy. There were far too many enemies around.

When Minister Erliao looked up and saw who was entering on the left-hand gate as he moved to leave through the right there was ever so briefly a glimpse of surprise. Then that surprise melted into a smile. Mizumi trusted that smile even less. Erliao said, "Tetzamatl Miohuito, it's a pleasure to see you! And your daughter too, who I had the pleasure of meeting recently. As I promised to her then, I must compliment you on a beautiful offspring." He bowed ever so slightly. Foreigners did not warrant much formality or indeed even a 'Mister', Mizumi observed.

Her father was not in the mood to bandy unpleasant pleasantries. He addressed minster's companion first before turning to Erliao. "Harbor Master Seiran. Chao," he said, returning discourtesies. "How fortunate. Just today I received notice that Public Safety was requesting access to my house in the Exclusion for the purpose of their...investigation into the harbor fire and the other crimes against trade supporters. I am just a humble merchant so you will understand that I deferred the legal complexities of this to Trade Representative Tailang. I am sure he would be happy give your government whatever it needs to resolve the investigation into Chen Lizhen's death speedily. Within the bounds of the law of course."

"Of course," Erliao said. "Legalities must be respected. In the mean time I am sorry to hear that you have not yet received word on your petition to be given control of radial tram track number thirty-five for your..." Here he paused as if searching for a delicate term to represent something distasteful. "...coal-smoke train demonstration. But I'm happy to be able tell you that you will be shortly receiving permits to allow installing the required metal tracks on select tramway paths. I'm told that this is an important component of your plan."

Miohuito was stiff in his sarcastic response. "Yes, my plan to give your primitive stone cart system a significant upgrade at my own personal expense without any guarantee of approval for my own project. Excellent. Well, I will not keep you any longer. I am sure you will want to return to the Inner Ring. On my way up this Hill I saw what looked like large crowds of working-class people walking these streets below us." A twist in his voice implied the minister was likely to avoid such a thing like a plague.

Erliao waved his hand. "The citizens of this city have many celebrations. I'm sure it must be honoring some neighborhood god for this Ring. I am also sure you will understand the importance of local ceremonies, considering the ceremonies your people are currently giving the late Ambassador Naruhama. Of course, our gods tend to be a little older." He gave a soft chuckle as if in response to a gentle joke. Then another idea seemed to occur to him. "In fact, the Festival of the Autumn Veils is arriving soon. I will have to remember to invite you to my annual party. It's nice to set aside politics once and a while and join in a celebration of spirituality."

"Hmm, yes. Autumn is coming." Miohuito said noncommittally. Searching for any response short of profane name calling he blandly continued on that inane subject. "As we were passing over the Lower Ring I saw the beginning of several lines of fog creeping up. There were even a few lines of it here in the Middle Ring. I suppose the city's canals do that with the changing seasons."

Her father was clearly trying to disengage himself from this conversation so he could get inside the compound to speak with Gaoli but Mizumi was looking more closely at the minister. Erliao was now getting nervous. He wanted to leave quickly as well. But was it something more then the awkwardness of making small talk with political enemies?

Together the men stiffly said their goodbyes and parted. Mizumi and her father finally moved in to cross the Gaolis' courtyard. Inside the mansion's doors her father wasted no time. "Aizhang!" He called out loudly ignoring the servant who approached to offer him new slippers.

Another uniformed servant bowed low to Miohuito. "The master is in his reception room. I would be happy to-"

"Tetazamate'al! Get in here!" Her father's poorly pronounced name came booming through the house. That had to be Mister Gaoli's voice.

Mizumi's father strode forward through the house ahead of the servants who sought vainly to formally announce him. With two hands he seized upon each side of a set of tall double doors and pushed. Mizumi quickly scurried along behind him, sliding in before she could be redirected to some waiting area until Lili was brought out. After all, she was the heir to Miohuito Shipping, she deserved to be at these meetings if there was a crisis.

The high walls of the impressive reception hall were dim except for around the throne-like chair where Mister Gaoli sat. Gaoli was a wide and powerful man, usually more prone to laughter and bluster than brooding. However, now he sat scowling at a sheet of paper held slightly crumpled in his thick hand. Her father nodded respectfully as he entered but Gaoli did not look up. Instead he spoke loudly as if he was addressing his own hand. "Those conservatives are seeking to ruin us."

Miohuito sniffed at this understatement. "Sub-Minister Erliao indicated to me that my railroad demonstration is effectively dead in the water. Now they want me to pay for installing rails on the thirty-fifth tram line without any promise of even a trial contract. I have lost two of my most vocal supporters in the last week. Without Naruhama and Lizhen to speak on our behalf they are slowly strangling us!"

"Slowly?" Gaoli bellowed. "I've just been barred from conducting business in the harbor for an unnamed time frame! For a damned arson investigation! Your incoming shipment is going to rot on the docks if you can't leverage Tailang to burn this away."

"What! They froze your license? But that is..." Miohuito's eyes narrowed slightly. "Tailang is busy in his own way. Is that what Erlaio and Seiran came here to say? Did they say what direction this investigation is taking? I have heard talk that some are saying there were imported machines, motors and hydraulics, found hidden in the burned warehouse. Could they be trying to plant something on you?" So her father did not know about the engines Mizumi and her friends had seen the masked protesters uncover in Gaoli's warehouse. Then what was Gaoli doing with them? How did he get them if not from her father?

Gaoli gave this no significance. "Perhaps. Erliao's cronies would do anything to prevent me from modernizing our kingdom. From bringing domestic industry into the modern era."

"Through international partnership and investment." Her father reminded him.

"Yes, through partnership." Gaoli then reacted as if he had just suddenly seen Mizumi standing behind her father. "Tetz, perhaps you'd like to send your daughter to go meet with my Lili. All this politics is a bit much for such a beautiful young woman."

Mizumi bristled in affront and opened her mouth to show Gaoli just how much she did know about what was going on but her father turned and met her eyes. He said, "Maybe that would be for the best. Mizumi, Lili is probably waiting to see you. We must be good guests."

Mizumi bit her lip but she nodded in agreement. She bowed stiffly to Gaoli. "It was an honor to see you again Mister Gaoli." She raised up and met him in the eye, projecting her dissatisfaction at him belittling her.

He met her sharp gaze with a smile. "Ha! I'm sure you'll be gouging me on prices yourself in a few years, girl. Tetz, I envy your Fire Nation's fierce women." He nodded to Mizumi and gestured to the side with his head. "Lili will be waiting with her mother in the women's parlor."

Mizumi brought her fist against her spread palm under her bowed head in salute and turned with parade ground precision to exit out the indicated door, opposite the one she and her father had entered through. As she put out her hand to open it she glanced back, but her father and Gaoli were waiting until she leaved to continue their discussion. She sighed and opened the door quickly, striding through to close the door behind her.

"Is everything ok out there?" A voice spoke from inches behind her neck.

It was all Mizumi could do not to jab backwards with her elbow in pure surprise-based aggression. For someone who rarely stopped talking, Lili could be surprisingly stealthy.

Mizumi turned to answer Lili. "Yes, they are just discussing Minister Erliao's...wait. Why are you standing here in the hallway?"

Lili waved this off with a fluttering hand. "Not important, and I know that things are ok in here. I meant outside the compound. Was your trip here from the Exclusion all right?"

Mizumi was confused by this concern. "No, it was fine. There was some disturbance in the distance but apparently it was some local festival. Other than that just fog." Now worry was beginning to settle in her stomach. "Why are you worried? Has Ayika not yet arrived?" It was a long way from the Harbor Town if you were a woman alone in this city.

"A festival? I am not sure of that. Oh, and no, she has not. I told the servant's entrance to let her in right away when she gets here, but..." Lili glanced out the shuttered window at the view of the dark courtyard. She then turned away. "Come with me. There's a better way to go about this."

Lili dashed off deeper into the mansion. Mizumi followed, assuming that they were not rushing to any ladies' parlor. They took several odd turns through the halls and cuts through various unoccupied rooms and Mizumi elected to simply follow Lili, silently sneaking when her guide abruptly stopped running for a bit before dashing off again. Then they were heading up a flight of stairs and after a few more rooms ascended another level.

Eventually they entered a room on the third floor that opened out onto a balcony. That open space gave a view out over the roofs of adjoining mansions on the Fifth Hill to the city that spread out below. Mizumi decided the time for questions had come. In part, her motivation was the fact that hearing Lili be silent for this many minutes was unnerving. In the admittedly brief time she had known her, Lili had maintained a near constant stream of whispered comments, even during the funeral. As Lili stopped on the balcony Mizumi came up and said, "Now what is it that you...Wait. What is that?"

"That's what I wanted to show you."

The Gaoli house sat perched at the top of a hill, allowing it to rise above the surrounding expansive metropolitan sea of the Middle Ring. This ancient neighborhood had come to serve as an even better landmark for urban navigation in recent years since the elder Gaoli had installed a gas streetlamp system in this quarter, something the rest of the kingdom had been reluctant to advance towards, casting bright regular light while the rest of the city sat in shadows or candlelight. However, tonight was different. Down out in the wider shadows of the Ring it looked like there were patches of fireflies flowing forward without the swarm ever moving. But those were not insects. They were a stream of oil lamps and torches on the streets below, glimpsed through gaps in the buildings. There were so many of them, and they were all converging on the Fifth Hill. It seemed purposeful. It seemed ominous.

"That does not look like a festival."

Lili exhaled sharply. "I didn't think so."

A trill of fear seized Mizumi's chest. "Ayika is out there! She was coming to meet us, she must be caught up in all that. That is why she is late!"

"Well, there's not much we can do." Lili raised one eyebrow. "A wise bet would say all those people are coming here. Between your father and mine I think they could have annoyed that many people." She snapped her fingers and gave a little hop. "The west wing has a bit which hangs out near the front square. If we keep watch there then if Ayika manages to get her way to the compound gate we can quickly spot her and direct her inside."

Mizumi looked out at the darkness where lines of even more distant lights stood out above the shadowed sweep of tiled roofs, tracing the tram stations and the heights of the encircling city walls. Tonight those walls felt like they were shutting her in instead of keeping her out. A breath of wind carried the vague sound of chanting voices up from lower on the hill. They were coming. She thought to herself, 'Please, Ayika. Get here soon.'

She turned to Lili. "All right, let us get into position."

...

From up on the first Middle Ring tram station Ayika thought it looked like the Gaolis had gone mad. In the distance, the Fifth Hill was lit up like this was some grand festival night with hundreds of lanterns and torches in the streets adding to the illumination of the permanent gas lamps. If she had not observed the crowds moving on the streets below the station Ayika might have thought that the rich merchants who lived on the hill were throwing some absurdly opulent party. But though she was late to meet with Mizumi and the sun had set, there were still a great many people afoot down on the streets at the foot of the tram line. Many carried torches and lamps that cast rushing shadows on building walls and illuminated glowing clouds where the light fell on rising tendrils of unseasonably early fog near the Merchant's Wall.

As Ayika descended down the stairs from the tram line station to to the square below, she also noticed that many of these late-evening travelers did not dress like they were natives of the Middle Ring, and they were hurrying. These were not the usual nighttime wanderers. Ayika stopped below a hanging oil lamp outside a government post office and huddled in that pool of light as she thought of how to get her bearings. Most of the strange street traffic was moving away from her location generally west. A young man in a recognizably Lower Ring outfit jogged by and she flung out her hand to flag him down.

"Hey, you! In the south district butcher's getup! What's going on up here?"

The boy stopped and stuffed back in his mouth whatever instinctive reply he'd intended to shout when he saw the shape of person who'd yelled at him. See, she didn't need any ridiculous counter girl uniform to get male attention, even if that fact made her feel very uncomfortable. The young man sauntered over, trying to cover exactly how heavily he was breathing from his run. He saw her clothes and skin that marked her as another resident of the Lower Ring or further out and thus a girl within his conceivable reach. Ayika hid her slight shudder.

The man said, "There's a huge protest march tonight. Some big merchant up in this ring's been selling out the King to those Islanders down the river! It's amazing! People've finally had enough with the foreign bastards and everyone joined up. People are still rousing neighborhoods down below the Merchant's Gate and there's more folks coming all the time."

Ayika blinked in surprise. Too late she realized that might look like fluttering her lashes but she had not time to consider that. "Wait, all these people marched up from the Lower Ring? Why would the guards let them through the wall?" The powerful of this city were not fond of trouble that spread between the rings.

He leaned close as if he was sharing a great secret. "I heard," he began theatrically. "...that someone figured out this merchant was planning on blowing up whole neighborhoods with underground pipes bought from the Fire Nation!"

"What." Ayika said flatly. As if to punctuate the silence a fancy rickshaw came clattering down the street pulled by a grinning young man that she would lay money on not being the authorized operator. The whooping boys in the back encouraging him on were probably not fares either. As always, protest was half a step away from looting. Disorder bred disorder.

Her own would-be-nationalist took her confusion for excitement at his story. "I know! Apparently that Gaoli guy was tricking the ministers to let him put tons of explosive gas pipes down under the city. Says they're for new street lamps. Pshhh! That way, if anyone starts talking to bad about the Fire Nation then..." He snapped his fingers. "Fwoosh! Their whole neighborhood goes up!"

Ayika tried to wrap her head around gibberish. This guy seemed like a latecomer to this night's commotion so if he was hearing this then it had already spread half way around the city by now. That was not how gas lamp pipes worked at least. Well, she didn't think that was how they worked. They had them down in the Exclusion. They wouldn't do that if they could be used as weapons, right?

The young man saw his story was having an effect. "Yeah, apparently the Islanders've already been burning places down in the Harbor and murdering people up in this Ring. I heard a bunch of teachers got knifed in their offices. It's about time someone did something like tonight." He stopped and gathered his nerve, putting on what he probably thought was a charming grin. "But it might not be safe for a girl like you to be out on a night like this. I actually know about an inn near here that serves great...Hey! Where are you going!"

Ayika raced off into the night, leaving the disappointed young man behind. Mizumi was at Lili's house right now. Mister Gaoli was the target of this mob. They were at the center of all this. Ayika had seen the city roused before. It wasn't pretty. She had to help. Somehow.

...

"You happy?" Xiaobao yelled at his brother over the incessant noise of the growing mob. "Are we 'close to the action' enough for you? I...woah, hey! Watch it!"

A member of the throng pushed into Xiaobao and was rewarded with a shove that sent him tumbling back into the press of the crowd. This kind of riotous march was proving hard to manage on the sloped streets of the Fifth Hill. Xinfei had to admit that by now riot was the best word to describe this. Zhangyi's march had grown far beyond what he could have expected. It sounded like there were still people flowing up from the Lower Ring behind them and Xinfei had to doubt that most of this massive crowd even knew that the university boys had organized this march. The only fortunate thing was that the obvious wealth of the mansions that surrounded them here provoked an anxiety that had so far constrained something worse from erupting out. As he glanced at the faces of this seething press of angry people, Xinfei had to assume many of these protesters had never even been into the Middle Ring before. Everyone was still uncertain how to act and that was saving them.

Xiaobao chimed up again. "Hey, if Ayika did start getting caught up in all this she'd have the sense to turn back. Right? I know she had an appointment up here but there are too many people on the streets for anything to end well."

Xinfei had to speak up to be heard over the chanting of the crowd. Their demands covered the full gamut of experience in frustrating city life, from job loss to fleas. Even Xinfei had to admit that some of them could hardly be blamed on wealthy traders or the Fire Nation. "Are you kidding? If she thought her new girl friends were at the center of this then she'd be trying to rescue them!" He looked around but he had long since lost track of Zhangyi and the other university students who were supposedly leading this movement. His plan to push for caution and control had very quickly unraveled.

Xiaobao sighed, "You're right, she would. Damn, we need to find our way back to the head of all this. These people, one wrong shout could turn this very ugly." He elbowed his way forward, trying to fight upstream to the top of the hill where Ayika might be. They had no way of knowing she was in fact far behind them. The streets vibrated with the uneven steps of marching feet and the moon had still yet to rise.

...


	26. Fury

...

It was now nearly impossible to move on these streets up the shadowed slopes of the Fifth Hill. The flow of marchers was being forcibly compacted by the narrow lanes between tall painted walls of merchants' mansion compounds. Xinfei's toes had been trodden on a number of times beyond count and even Xiaobao was once almost forced off his feet by the collective push of this many people surging like salmon in a spawning stream. Torches and lanterns were made superfluous here by the modern gas street-lamps but still many of the crowd hefted their own flames high. That harsh light beat on Xinfei's cheeks. He wondered how many people here tonight had genuine grievances with Islander supporters and how many had come outside to investigate the march and been swept along by the press of humanity.

As the two brothers pushed forward, or rather Xiaobao pushed forward and Xinfei threaded along behind him snaking from gap to gap, the faces they passed became more serious and more grim. An informal mechanism of diffusion-by-apathy had allowed the procession to sort its most ardent nationalists to the front of the pack. This pack was now arriving at a small gas-lamp lined square near the summit of the hill. On every side, huge double gates of ornate wood guarded the treasure-filled mansions that loomed up behind their compound's walls.

"Traitors!" some of the marchers screamed out.

Xinfei could see the upper floors of various mansions peaking out above those walls. Many of the windows had lamps gleaming in them but he couldn't tell which was Gaoli's which might be hiding Ayika. At least if she was here then there were strong gates between her and the riled public. Just how had she gotten mixed up with people who lived in houses like this? Xinfei looked around the square now clogged with protesters but he couldn't see where the University boys who supposedly had control of this demonstration were stationing themselves. This display was not looking particularly controlled at the moment.

More cries rang out from the crowd as protesters surged up the streets into this square.

"Murderer!" screamed someone.

"Thieves!" cried another.

"Mister Gaoli, our grievances are many! What you hear now is the will of the people!"

Ok, that sounded promising. Xinfei tugged on his brother's sleeve and threaded his way to where he assumed Zhangyi and his friends would be found.

He located them near the center of the square, pressed up against the rim of a small ornamental fountain. They did not seem to share his worries about the crowd's tone. The student leader's face lit up when he saw Xinfei. Zhangyi grabbed Xinfei's wrist and brought him in to clap him on the back. "Do you see this?! Ha! The people are finally moving! They are listening!" Zhangyi thrust his arms above his head as he tilted his head back with eyes closed in rapturous exhalation. "Do you hear them? The city has finally woken up!"

Of the other two students, Chonglong shared in this excitement while Jiang continued to look very uneasy. This was certainly a very different reception from what the boys had received for their rabble rousing efforts in the past. Jiang's silent skepticism expressed the view that there might be such a thing as too much success. Standing next to them was an older man that Xinfei thought he recognized as one of the other nationalists at the disastrous warehouse meeting. The man wore the patch of a Lower Ring guild tailor and while he bore his emotions less openly than the students he seemed even more determined. There were a few men like him peppered through the crowd. Men in whom anger had turned hard. They made Xinfei nervous.

The tailor muttered so that Xinfei could barely hear him over the din of the constantly swelling population of the square. "I doubt most of these people even know why we're here."

Zhanyi nodded. "Then let us provide them with guidance." With a hand on Chonglong's shoulder to steady himself he stood up on the lip of the fountain. The light of the lamps in the square threw him into sharp illumination against the stars. He called out as loudly as he could over the mob. "The merchant Gaoli lives here! He is a traitor and we are here to show him the city will not forgive him again!"

Xinfei doubted that in this pervasive volume anyone more than four meters away noticed Zhangyi was speaking but those nearest to him got the gist and from there the message seemed to percolate outwards. The nature of the cries from the crowd changed.

"Death to Gaoli!"

Xinfei saw the University boys grow worried at this interpretation. Especially when at the far end of the square the protesters began to attack the gate doors of a mansion compound while others began to throw rubbish and other scraps over the wall. It was not the mansion Zhanyi had been pointing to.

He cupped his hands and yelled again, wobbling on his unsteady fountain-top perch until Chonglong reached out to stabilize his legs. "No! That is the wrong house! Gaoli lives on the north side!" However, his exhortations showed no sign of overruling the democratic assessment of a crowd who felt confident in their collective decision. Zhangyi looked down at Jiang. "What's wrong with them? The family names are carved between the gates!"

Xinfei saw the carved characters etched in marble but he had to doubt that any in the mob could read that ornate calligraphy script that was apparently second nature for these rich boys. Even when he knew what he was looking for he could barely make out what might be the 'Gao'. From his brother's furrowed brow Xiaobao could not discern even that much.

Across the now packed square, Xinfei saw a single torch suddenly arch up into the air and slowly tumble down over a compound wall. That was not good. Xiaobao grabbed Zhangyi by the arm. "Those people are trying to set fires! You have to stop them!"

Chonglong snorted in derision. "None of these households would let a fire take hold. They will have every staff member out and prepared already. Let the crowd vent. The merchants can take care of their own."

Zhangyi was not so blasé. "No, this is a bad turn. We will lose legitimacy if the crowd turns to vandalism." He raised his voice to yell as loud as he could. "Hey! People! No throwing fire! That is not the mechanism of change!" From here he tried to regain control by starting up a suitably political chant again.

As Xinfei expected, no one listened. The only reply was a voice from across the square, calling out from within the targeted compound itself.

The man's voice roared out from somewhere behind the gate. Xinfei could barely make out the words over the noise of the square. "Desist this unlawful behavior at once or you will face the consequences! Disperse! I will be forced to defend my home! Leave now!"

The crowd laughed. Not all of them were clear on what a 'desist' was but they knew no flabby merchant or household watchman was going to dare stepping outside those gates against so many. Individually these marchers might be shop-boys or bricklayers but together, on this night, nothing could challenge them. A few yelled back rather rude suggestions of what other unlawful behavior they might consider if they were let inside while others continued to throw rubbish over the compound wall. Another torch was hefted and thrown and though it failed to reach the house's balcony it bounced off the side and down out of sight behind the wall.

The voice from the compound was heard again. "I have warned you!" This was only answered with jeers.

Then the lefthand gate of that compound began to open outwards. The motion was so smooth and sudden that it actually startled the crowd, causing many of them to take a step back. But soon enough the group processed this unlooked-for windfall and began to press forward, whooping and hollering in excitement. This night was no longer about politics and the Fire Nation. It was about these people having so much while others had so little. The front row of protesters was still cheering when the first blast of magically propelled bricks smashed into them like meteors falling horizontal across the earth.

The excitement turned to screams so quickly that the rest of the crowd filling the square turned as one, every person whether they could see or not swiveling to face that open compound gate. Those who could not see could still hear. They heard the terrible impact of breaking stone and another round of bloody anguished screams above dull meaty thuds. A rent appeared in the mass of protesters. In the open gate there now stood two men in light green robes richly embroidered with turquoise thread. They bent their legs in well-practiced attack stances as they raised their fists once more. One was old with a magnificent grey mustache, the other was younger with a similar mustache in shining black. They looked like father and son. They were earthbenders and when they moved their arms in the ancient forms a large chunk of the paved square ripped its self free to stand up vertically between them. Then this newly raised wall of tight-fitted stone began to topple down on the heads of the packed protesters. There was no where to run and the screams redoubled. The earthbenders continued to attack.

The crowd was now fighting itself. Twin impulses of bravery and fear manifested at different rates to produce violently mixing currents as many struggled to get away from the front lines while others rushed forward to provide aid or fight back. There was no room to move. The people filling the side streets were pressing forward to see what the commotion was, trapping everyone in the square against the rage the earthbenders. For a split second a swirling bodies parted and Xinfei saw a protester with a hammer in his hand break from from the crowd to rush at the elder bender who was momentarily distracted. The protester got within five paces before a flying paving slab the size of a chair caught him on the side of his head. He went down hard and the scene was hidden again.

Zhangyi was horrified. "No. They can't do this. Those two are attacking citizens!"

Xinfei saw his brother staring at the earthbender's methodical rampage and recognized the hard look creeping over Xiaobao's face. It was the look that led to the man who never started a fight finding himself in so many of them. Xinfei yelled out to counter his brother's heroic impulses. "We've got to run! The city guards and Public Safety will have to show up soon! If we don't run now we'll be caught between two sets of benders!"

The middle-aged tailor beside them spoke up. Xinfei had forgotten about him. He had been quiet but now his face twitched with deep-rooted anger. "No. No more running. The spirits protect us." With careful devotion he reached into his bag and drew forth a carved mask, dark and polished. He stretched the band behind his head and lowered it over his face. This was the first time Xinfei had been so close to a Mask being used. After all the creepy things Ayika had said, he half expected some rush of wind, or image of twisting shadows, or trembling in the earth like when the benders began. But there was nothing, just a tailor with a bit of wood on his head. A furious tailor. Without even realizing it Xinfei took half a step back as though he could almost feel the anger and primal ferocity that radiated off this man.

The tailor spoke through the gnashing of his teeth. "The common people of this city've spent too long without power. It's time they had hope. And it's time that the traitors know fear." His voice echoed strangely behind its new carved shield.

He stepped forward and the densely packed crowd mysteriously parted around him before reforming. He disappeared from their sight. Xinfei fought his way up to stand on the lip of the fountain next to Zhangyi and he saw three other similar ripples moving through the sea of panicked heads, all advancing to the broken field the earthbenders had cleared. The father and son could not advance very far from the gates of their mansion compound without being surrounded so they had contented themselves with smoothly raising up low barricades of piled stone while they continued to pelt the helpless masses with magically flung bricks. The son had a gleam of wicked enjoyment that mingled with fear in his eye as he stomped his foot against the ground, sending a brick jumping up to hover in mid air. With a twist of his body his fist came forward and at the point of impact an unseen force propelled the fired earth forward into another bashed and bloody back. He was still smiling when a masked man smashed through his reenforced stone barricade with only the strength of one naked hand.

In the time it took to blink the masked man burst forward, darting with such speed that his fingers scraped the ground like a quadruped beast. The earthbender barely had the chance to face his attacker before a hand clamped down on his forearm. The snap of bone was audible.

"Aaagh!" The rich bender screamed in lightning-struck pain that paralyzed him in sudden shock. The man in the mask was drawing back his free hand for a tiger-palm strike against the merchant's head. This attacker was faster than was possible. He was stronger than was possible. He was not using bending at all but somehow he was unstoppable. He was a tailor in a mask.

Xinfei only had time to think that there was going to be one less bender in the world when the ground suddenly erupted beneath the masked man's feet. A rough spike of stone shot up between the Mask and his prey, forcing him to release his grasp. The stricken son fell backwards as his father sprang to his side, crouching as his fists rose into the next earth-stance. The chubby tailor slid back, maintaining his balance on the torn and shifting ground as easily as a cat dancing on a wall. There was something more than human about his motions. Now other masked figures emerged from the crowd, slipping forth like shipwrecking crags from the falling tide. They did not speak, but a sound that might have been barking laughter could be heard over the screams in the square. Then Masks attacked and the earth burst forth in retaliation.

The Masks moved fast enough to dodge every magical attack. They could leap like crickets and run along the sides of walls with the ease of lizards as they avoided the erupting earth. And they were strong. Strong enough to block the attacks of benders with their bare hands. But though they hurled one-handed blocks of broken stones that two men would have trouble lifting, the benders could halt the course of these projectiles in mid air with one shift of their palm. Still, the only thing saving these two wounded benders was the fact that the men in the masks seemed incapable of coordinating any attack between them. The Masks fought in a confusing manner, sometimes into each other or pausing as if distracted by an unknown sound.

One of the Masks dodged a flying pile of stones and dropped down to a rest in the bright pool of light at the foot of one of Gaoli's famous gas-lamps that still lit the square. That man in the mask turned and seized hold of that metal pole. There was the horrible sound of screeching ripping metal and then the flaming iron sapling was souring free through the night. Earthbenders could not block metal, but it seemed the Masks could tear and throw it. Xinfei could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Ayika had been right, there was strange magic at work here.

The lamppost smashed through the merchants' earth defenses and laid them both down. The only one who rose back up was the son with his useless hanging arm. The masked tailor panted while behind him the newly exposed hole in the street burst into a jet of fire shot forth where some errant spark had ignited the escaping gas. Then he tilted his head back and trumpeted triumph in a demihuman roar. The another Mask moved forward to the earthbending son and it was quickly over. Both benders were down. A bloodcrazed cheer rang forth from the terrified mob who was desperate for any victory. Common people could not fight benders, but tonight they had. The night abounded with monsters but for once at least some were on their side. The eager calls of "Fire!" echoed down crowds in the streets. It was a command, not a warning. The fear of the earthbenders was now turned to anger and desire for retribution. Tonight the fury of the unfortunate was unleashed.

One of the masked men leaped up and with the grasp of one outstretched hand swung himself on top of the high compound wall. Below him, people were already pouring through the open gate into the now undefended mansion compound. The screams of women echoed out from inside. At this distance and in the wavering light Xinfei could not be sure but he thought that the Mask on the wall was the tailor. But when that man called out Xinfei was thrown into deeper doubt. This voice was different.

"Children of our City!" The masked man roared out, three times as loud as Zhangyi had ever managed in his efforts. "These traitors try to force you down! They try to silence you! But the spirits of our Nation look out for us! They will protect you! And you will bring justice to the traitors and foreigners! Do you hear us, Merchant Gaoli? We are coming for you! All you race traitors will fall!" The crowd cheered in response. For the first time, the common people had lashed out and they had won.

Zhanyi's mouth worked soundlessly as he looked at where the two earthbenders had vanished under the surging mob. The other Initiated wearing their masks had dashed off down other streets, leading detachments of the mob out to other targets in the neighborhood. Targets Zhangyi had never considered. The crowd didn't care. The people who lived behind these walls were rich and the protesters were not. But tonight the poor had powerful unlooked-for allies.

Beside Xinfei, Jiang murmured, "It seems the people have spoken."

Xinfei pressed close to his brother. They should not be here. This was bad. Government earthbenders would be converging, the street was shooting fire into the air and people who put on wooden masks could tear through iron with their bare hands. They'd come here to look after Ayika and now they were in need of rescuing themselves. This was not about Lizhen's murder any more or Ayika making friends with some rich girls. This was the seed of a revolution. That was when a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

There was a woman's voice behind him. "Fortunately for you, this isn't a good time to say I told you so." Xinfei turned and saw a dark face twinkling under braided hair. Despite everything he had seen he smiled as relief thudded in his chest. Ayika had found him. Ayika was here and he couldn't even bring himself to notice her teasing. They were together now and at least that one thing was right. Xinfei grabbed her into a tight hug. Around them the crowd roared up into the night as jets of fire shot up from the street-stones.

...

Mizumi looked down from the third story window of the Gaoli house at the chaos below. She carefully unclenched her white knuckles from the windowsill. Somehow the protest in the square had devolved into even more disorder. Across the square two Kingdom benders were on the attack. But now something had changed. Someone was fighting them. People were screaming and from where she stood looking out above it all she could do nothing. Yes, it was her current position and not her fear that kept her in inaction. She was not terrified of the earthbenders. She was not terrified of the crowd. She was not terrified of anything that thought themselves capable of defeating benders. She was not, and she kept telling herself that.

Beside her, Lili gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. "What happened out there? Are the Changs alright? I don't see them anymore."

She had to mean the father and son earthbenders. Their formerly methodical assault on the crowd across the square was now a chaotic burst of thumps, screeches and clouds of dust. Fighters from the crowd were now running around near that open compound gate and none of them had not been hit yet. Mizumi had just been watching those two benders brutalize the crowd and now Mizumi referred to them on familiar terms. "You know those people?"

"They're my neighbors."

"They were attacking defenseless nonbenders!"

"I said neighbors not family. Ah! No! Did someone just break one of my dad's street-lamps? Who are those people?!"

There was a plume of fire across the square. The tall metal lamp had been torn free with one bare hand. Earth Kingdom magic could not do that. Mizumi knew it shouldn't be possible but there was only one group which had shown hints of such unknown power; of such strength. A group who had previously fought an earthbender to a draw and blocked boulders with an open palm. The Masks were out there. Out where Ayika might be. Mizumi pushed away the thought that the other woman might have been caught in the earthbenders' devastating first attack. Ignoring Lili's confused jabber, Mizumi anxiously scanned the chaos in the streets beyond the Gaoli compound gate that was holding back the angry mob. Suddenly she saw a familiar form jutting up a full head and shoulders above those around him.

She cried out, "I see Xiaobao!"

Lili clutched at the balcony railing. "Who? What are you talking...Oh freaking, that man over there just jumped three meters without using earth magic! He's not a bender! How is he...?!"

Mizumi was thinking quickly as she tried to block out the sounds of the riotous crowd below. "I think I see some of the university boys too. They were at the meeting of the nationalists and the Initiated. It is sense that they would be involved in leading this. If Ayika got caught out there she would try to find them so she could try to stop this. We have to help her!" But she did not move.

"How are you still worrying about that girl?" Then Lili gasped in panic at another crash of the angry crowd beating against her gate. "The city guards have to be here soon, right? Right?"

A sound of cracking wood drifted up from the courtyard below. The Gaoli household servants jumped back from one of the compound gates where a few splinters had just raised up in one of the bars holding them shut. Those elegant doors were designed more for show than for function, a decision that the Gaolis must be regretting now. The frantic press of the mob was proving likely to do what the unorganized effort of individuals had not come close to. Mizumi and her father were trapped in here with Lili's family and those servants piling furniture against the gates could not help for long. Still, she found herself frozen at this windowsill.

Lili grabbed at Mizumi's hands. The other girl was terrified, speaking each word before they finished coalescing in her mind. "You know the leaders out there? We have to get them to move away from my house! There must be some way to convince them. To trick them. Bribe. Something to draw all this away. Please, Mizumi. I need your help!"

Mizumi nodded and as soon as she did so she suddenly knew she would be able to try. It was strange how two scared people joining together could multiply the bravery in both. Now all she had to do was sneak out of the building, meet up with Ayika in the middle of a violent and terrified mob, convince anti-fire nation protesters to listen to her, and then forcibly move a giant riot featuring men of impossible power in masks. If she succeeded she might as well try firebending again for the first time since she was ten since as much luck as this plan required might just spontaneously generate the talent. But she was Fire Nation. That meant bravery. She glanced out over the balcony one last time and clenched her fist.

"All right then. How do we get out there?"

...


	27. Plan

...

"Ayika! You're safe, thank the gods and spirits! We need to get away, now!"

Xiaobao hugged her with great relief as Ayika huddled near him both against the pushing and shoving of innumerable other protesters. She was incredibly glad to see him and Xiaobao but also here in the middle of this square, against the press of so many people, the only way Ayika was able to resist the flow of the mob was to shelter in the lee of Xiaobao and that equally large Chonglong guy. Her strategy of finding Xinfei by rushing towards the worse possible place to end up had worked out well however now she was stuck with them on the top of the Fifth Hill. To one side she could hear yells and the thumps of angry people assaulting the gates to Lili Gaoli's mansion.

At least she assumed the sounds she was hearing were coming from those gates. All Ayika saw was a sea of chests, backs, and heads. Even if she tried hopping in place she could barely get a brief glimpse over the uneven ranges of shoulders. Sometimes being short was very inconvenient. Also inconvenient: an army of rioters trying to get to Mizumi while being exhorted by mask-wearing figures illuminated stark against the glowing orange haze of the night sky above the lamp-lit hill. Oh, and the road itself was on fire. The fact that she couldn't tell why that steady jet of fire was there made it only more worrisome.

Xinfei wrapped her tight in a bony hug. "I'm so glad you aren't inside that mansion! Maolin's right, this has all gone to chaos. We need to run! The guards'll be here any minute and they're going to show no mercy!"

Ayika wanted so much to follow him away from the danger but instead she gently shook him off. She had come here tonight for a reason. "No! This mob's going to break through those doors long before any help can arrive! Mizumi and Lili are in there! There's got to be some way to help here!"

Across the square, the rioters had already somehow gotten through a set of gates to another merchant's mansion compound before Ayika arrived. A man in a mask stood perched high on the wall beside the open gate looking out at the seething mass of angry people below. The illumination of half-a-hundred flickering fires below gave him a dappled hide and made his movements assume the jerky motion of an unoiled puppet. Then Ayika saw him out of the corner of her eye and the impression of strangeness grew stronger. When she had seen the nationalists don their masks in the warehouse fight all those nights ago she had felt a great sense of uneasiness. Tonight there was not the same sense of pervasive pressure behind the air, nor were the fires behaving strangely in the accelerated dancing motion she had first seen the night of Lizhen's death. But there was a similar kind of strangeness here. There was motion in the shadows.

The masked man on the wall was alone. His fellow Masks had split off to run down other streets drawing off some of the crowd. To Ayika's eyes those masked people were driven more by an inability to remain still than by any grand design. The remaining member of the Initiated up on the wall was in constant motion, flinging up his arms to urge on his followers as he crouched and stood and paced back and forth in frantic energy. But his bloodthirst was stymied. No matter how acrobatic this fighter had suddenly become he could not get pass the mob that filled the square to reach the Gaolis' gates but he could also not bring himself to remain still.

Ayika blinked as she stared up as this Mask. In a photographic impossibility he cast a shadow of dim color onto the night air behind him. This shadow mirrored his movements, only a moment before or after the man himself performed them. It was connected at his wrists and the place where the mask met his head. Ayika marveled that no one else was remarking on it, but since they could be torn apart by a mob at any moment these strange sights may have been given a lower priority. A constant shiver raced behind her spine.

Wait. If she'd seen Chonglong here then Zhangyi should be right...

She saw the leader of the student group leaning against the edge of a fountain next to his friend Jiang. Ayika pushed over to him. He'd once been at the head of the nationalist protest movement, maybe he had a chance of seizing some control over this crowd. Anything that might give her a chance of leading them away from the command of whoever was wearing the masks. Or was wearing the mask wearers.

"Zhangyi!" She saw him and grabbed at his black student-robe's sleeve. "This is crazy! You have to stop this! People are going to die if you don't!"

The young nationalist blinked in astonishment as he looked up to see Ayika, but then his face fell into a dazed and bitter smile. "They aren't listening to me. The Initiated have taken over tonight and they have no intention of deescalating. Next to them I have no power. What I saw here... I don't even know if I believe what I saw."

Jiang grabbed at Zhangyi's sleeve. "She's right. This violence is ruining everything! Come on, you have to try to lead this off before they commit any more crimes! Whatever trick the Initiated are playing we can still try to-"

"Trick?!" Zhangyi interrupted with incredulous fury. "You saw the same thing I did! You saw what they... What are we next to monsters?"

Chonglong burst in. "Monsters? Don't you see? This is the power we have been waiting for! The strength is in the masks and it's getting stronger! Power any citizen can hold! I won't pretend to understand but this is glorious!"

Ayika could see that there was little hope of help to be found here. Zhangyi had checked out and Chonglong seemed to be genuinely enjoying the disruption. A quick glance confirmed the primary Mask was still standing on his wall but that would not last. If he chose to fight his way through his supporters he would reach the Gaoli's gate in moments. Mentally, Ayika tried to cast herself back in time to the last time she had seen this neighborhood, to see if she could gain any insight from the landscape that the mass of people was now hiding from her. Xinfei tugged at her again, pleading with her to get out of danger but she might have thought of something.

These rich people's houses did not like to touch. They didn't even share compound walls. In most cases these gaps formed alleys that tonight were probably also filled with more of the same roused populace but on one side of the Gaoli place the hill dropped off rather steeply. The alley space was replaced with a small cliff but along there she thought she remembered seeing...

"Come on, I might have an idea. I think I might know how to reach her." She yelled as she grabbed onto Xiaobao and his brother's arms. In truth she was using Xiaobao as a plow to till the crowd before her so she might slink through the furrow behind. Undignified, but now that she was fighting the mob's direction of motion this was the only choice for someone of her size. Then, finally, they reached the edge of the square. Thankfully, these side streets were much less crowded. Down the hill she saw a crowd of torch-carrying nationalists following another masked figure as they ran down the street and around a corner to some other target. Behind them came the flickering light of rising flames from wherever they had visited previously. Things seemed to be fragmenting but not quickly enough for Mizumi and Lili trapped within that mansion.

Ayika muttered to herself. "I think it's...Ah, ha! I was right."

Here on this sloping street the wall of the Gaoli compound was above and to their right but a small cliff that occupied the gap between the next mansion below was broken by a line of stones half way up, perhaps built to keep the hill from collapsing further. To most considerations the difference between this and a sheer slope would be academic but if you were desperate enough then the top of that narrow support wall looked like a broad highway to the backside of the mansion.

"This way!" She yelled as she jumped from the downward sloping street to the edge of the retaining wall and proceeded to run along it. The Bao brothers followed but lacking some of her goat-like sure-footedness they shuffled along at a reduced speed. They were now away from the lamp-lit streets and well into the dark. Light glowed up over rooftops below but here the three of them were deep in shadow which made seeing difficult as Ayika peered up at the mansion.

It looked like the Gaolis valued security somewhat less on this side of the compound. Above her was the mansion proper rather than an outer wall. She thought she could see windows puncturing the stone just a few meters above her. They should probably be able to climb up there. Ayika had plenty of experience climbing buildings but usually she had something more to work with. She reached up and pressed her hands against the tightly fitted stone blocks. Perhaps if she stood on Xiaobao's shoulders? Then her reaching finger tips brushed and end of fabric laying loosely against the vertical stones.

What? She just had time to register confusion at this hanging object when someone landed on her from above.

Two different yelps of surprise range out as Xinfei yelled, "Look out!" He took an energetic shuffle forward along the narrow wall-top as he rushed to take a swing at the attacker who had pounced down on Ayika in the dark. Then he was yelping himself as a fist parried his wild blow and returned a sharp strike to his nose. Xinfei teetered back but his brother managed to stabilize him before he fell off the ledge. He managed to say, "Ayika! Get free, I will try to...!"

The attacker paused. "...Xinfei?" The female voice was heavily accented.

Xinfei managed to seamlessly transition from ferocious heroism to resigned exasperation in less than a second. "And of course it's you. Mizumi, could you maybe help Ayika up before she falls to her death?"

Ayika had managed to prevent herself from rolling off the edge in that first moment of confusion but as she sat there with her back pressed to the rock behind her, trying to calm her furiously beating heart, she appreciated the consideration. She found Mizumi's reaching hand in the dark and accepted the help up. Once she was standing securely Mizuni wrapped her in a tight hug that for a moment threatened to send the both of them toppling back off the ledge into the shadows below. "Tza, Ayika! I am so glad you are all right!"

The moment was broken by another voice from above. "Is anyone going to tell me what's going on down there? I'm assuming it's not murderers but some confirmation would be nice."

Lili was leaning out the window with a candle holder in her hand. Next to her was a makeshift rope of some sort of cloth that must have been how they were planning to climb down. Lili squinted down as she reached out with the candle before she suddenly brightened in recognition. "Oh, Ayika! We were just looking for you!"

Mizumi sprang back from the embrace and Ayika managed to find her voice. "Uh, yeah. Um, let's let Xiaobao get under that so he can help Lili down. Mizumi, Xinfei, scoot this way."

It took Lili a few moments to gather up her nerve and lower herself out the window. Even so she made several small cheeps like a young bird every time she slid the smallest bit and a much louder cheep when Xiaobao unexpectedly reached up and grabbed hold of her legs to help her the rest of the way down. Once she was securely back on her own feet she pressed herself against Xiaobao's chest as she murmured, "Oh dear. That was terrifying. I..."

She stopped as she realized that she was in fact pressed against a strange man's chest. She suddenly pushed herself back in embarrassment. However, it was not as much embarrassment as might have been mustered since her hands were still comfortably resting on his considerable pectorals.

"Oh! Um! You must be the one called Xiaobao. Mizumi...wow, Mizumi did not describe you sufficiently." Beneath her mortification there was an audible tone of appreciation.

"Um, yeah." Xiaobao muttered uncomfortably. Further back Xinfei faintly groaned to himself and Ayika smiled. Xiaobao tended to make impressions like that. Ayika supposed she couldn't see the appeal since he was like a brother to her but the man had a habit of such meetings even if those attentions frequently made him very uncomfortable. On the subject of cheek-reddening personal contact Mizumi was still clutching tightly at her hand. Those Fire Nation girls were big on touching. Ayika squeezed back to get her attention.

"Mizumi, it's really bad out there. You need to get back to the Exclusion as quickly as possible. The four of us should be able to make it safely. Lili, you..." She stopped. For a moment she had completely forgotten that this was Lili's home that was being attacked. She was probably in almost as much danger Mizumi.

Mizumi sounded offended at the suggestion that she might run. "I am not fleeing. I saw that the Student Conservatives are here. We might convince-"

Xinfei interrupted. "We already tried. Those guys are out of the loop. The mask-wearing guys are in charge tonight."

"Um, guys?" Xiaobao said uncertainly. "Could we have this conversation somewhere a little more horizontal. I, wha wha woah! Almost fell there. Could we move it a bit?"

By some miracle this side street at the end of the retaining wall was still mostly clear. Down the slope, Ayika thought she could see people moving around bend in the road but it appeared that for now everyone who wanted to be at the Gaoli's doorstep was already in the square. When she stood up on the end of the retaining wall and leaned out to put a hand against the street's gas-lamp she could see up into the square clearly. The problem was how to get those angry rioters to leave and she saw no way to do that.

"Lili," she said as she jumped back down to the street. "You and Mizumi got out this back way through the window. Could the rest of your family make it out this there? Get people out before the mob break through your gates?"

Lili flinched at another round of cries from the crowd seeking to get into her house. She shook her head. "Father would never do that. And there are too many people! In addition to Mister Miohuito and my parents the servants and staff are eighteen people! You can't sneak out a crowd like that!"

Ayika looked back at Mizumi. The other woman was staring up at the violent protesters. Shoot, she had forgotten that Mizumi's father was going be here as well. No wonder Mizumi had been unwilling to run. Now there was not even fear on her face, only narrow-eyed determination. Ayika saw a subtle shifting in her stance as Mizumi reached into a pocket and drew forth a string or ribbon. Without looking away from the top of the hill she gathered up some of her black hair tinged with threads of rust to tie it back. Maybe she was preparing to run after all.

Xiaobao was talking. "All we'd need to do is buy a little time until the guards arrive. Those Masks might break through the doors in half a second but I think he can't get to them for the crowd and the crowd doesn't seem to be able to dent the gates so they're stuck for the moment."

Xinfei said, "We'd need to draw them off. Get their attention with something they were more interested in than Gaoli himself. " He had a weird tone to his voice and when Ayika looked at him he seemed almost guilty. His eyes quickly swung away like the had been looking at something.

"We have that." Mizumi said. Ayika turned and saw that she had climbed up to take Ayika's previous position on the wall by the lamppost. Standing on that perch the gaslight illuminated and colored her, turning her hair into gleaming copper and her clothes into living blood. On her head she now wore a foreign topknot like the Ozai puppets in street-side shows. She looked the living incarnation of a proud Fire Nation woman. She was beautiful.

Ayika realized what she was planning. She hissed, "Mizumi, no!"

Mizumi smiled down at her. "Be ready to run. I will give them something to chase." She turned back to the square crowded with foreigner-hating rioters. From her lamplit pedestal she must have seemed floating into view as an infernal icon of their ire. Not one was looking in her direction but soon she fixed that.

"Fire Nation! Fire Nation!" She screamed in a lyrical chants. Then she unleashed a blistering stream of her native language. _"Nuata zai tetlanama oso nai zemi! Tzanara! Nuata zai_!" It was an incredible volume that she managed. This close to her, Ayika saw Xinfei and Lili flinch at the sheer noise of what had to be some pretty terrible profanity. All Ayika could think of was that this brave girl might be signing her own death warrant.

" _Nazuana_ Fire _himeotla ne!_ " Mizumi now had to pant for breath. She looked down at her friends. "I think that did it." She glanced back up at the scene near the mansion gate. "Oh, that really did it. Run!" She jumped down from the wall and stumbled slightly as she was already running before she hit the ground. The other four bolted after her as a human dam broke overhead and let its roaring tide of anger spill down the street. They had succeeded in causing a distraction. Now they just had to live through it.

...


	28. Run

...

"Left!"

"No, right!"

Ayika's shoes pounded against the cobblestones. At this point she was simply pumping her legs to keep her feet under her as they raced down the hill. Any spare thought was spent praying that no dark shadow was hiding a tilted paving-stone that would bring her ankle tumbling down. Her shorter strides had left her at the back of the group with Lili who despite possessing a more suitable runner's physique was obviously not accustomed to this kind of exercise. Behind them came the thundering sounds of pursuit from the angry crowd. As a group the friends blew past an intersection down which Ayika could see a smashed compound gate surging with other shouting rioters. Some household less securely walled than the Gaolis' had suffered the overflow of tonight's ire. That gate looked like it had been broken to shards with brute force.

Up the street behind them, Ayika heard the crowd from the square thundering closer, still intent on chasing Mizumi. For a moment the curving road became straight and the horde of pursuers above caught sight of the five runners. The many-headed beast roared out in incoherent anticipation. Then the street twisted and its prey were hidden again. They had to find a way to hide.

Xinfei slowed his pace slightly and fell back to the girls. He spoke between heavy breathing as they continued to run. "Next. other. crowd. Slow down. before. and we can. blend in. Lose them." Ayika thought it was a good plan. The odds of outrunning the mob behind them were slim and they stood out on these empty streets. No one had seen their faces clearly when Mizumi made her display. They could just pretend to be other rioters in one of the other groups. A couple dozen meters more and she saw the flickering light of torches shining on the walls of the next intersection. They hurriedly dropped to a walking pace and tried to round the corner at an inconspicuous pace. It would not do to be seen as panicked. The sound of yells and banging behind them drew more distinct and in a last fit of inspiration Ayika reached up and whipped off Mizumi's ribbon maintaining that distinctive topknot just before they reached the new lane. Mizumi grabbed at her hair in surprise but smiled gratefully when she realized what had happened.

On this new street the five friends were joining an expression of patriotism already in progress. Some of the marchers had gotten their hands on paint and brushes. Now the tall walls around these rich merchant houses were covered with sloppily written condemnations of treachery and some anatomically improbable illustrations. Those protesters not preoccupied with their art were crowded around the broken front of a small building squashed in between two wealthy compound walls. It looked like it had been some sort of shop that catered to the residents of this neighborhood and thus had received some special dispensation to open mercantile premises in the residential area. Maybe tonight that business acumen appeared as collaboration or the owner had been unlucky enough to leave some Islander fashions or products on display to those passing by. Other belligerents were across the street banging on one of Gaoli's gas street-lamps with several long pieces of wood. Fortunately, none of these people were of the mask-wearing Initiated so that was not likely to amount to anything too destructive.

Several men were holding torches outside the remains of the shop and looked up at Ayika's advancing knot of youths. However, Xinfei and Xiaobao led them and looked appropriately working class. They fit the expected demographics of a protest so no second thought was given to their companions. Together they moved closer, seeking to blend in with this group as camouflage from the mob that was going to pass them any second. Little bits of broken wood crunched under Ayika's feet, the remnants of window shutters or some other screen. For all the terror this night has inspired in her, the expressions on the faces of the men around her were not hate or fear, but joy, exaltation at this liberating expression of destruction. This was the Night of Veils but played out with more passion. Those most confined by the rules and order of the city had burst forth in chaotic celebration of their own identity. But something twisted beneath the surface. Ayika tried to wrap her mind around this stray thought, the feeling at the back of her neck. Like at the top of the hill. Then someone bumped her and the sensation was gone but she remembered it well.

She grabbed at Mizumi's arm. "Something's not right. I...I don't know but we should get out of here."

Xiaobao looked over at her. "Not now. Look back." He pointed the way they had come. The intersection was filled with searching figures. They were yelling out about foreign spies lurking nearby. Xiaobao whispered, "Those folks are out for our blood. Any sight of running and they'll chase. At least there aren't any of those Mask fellows over here." Xinfei nodded in agreement.

Ayika shook her head. The feeling of wrongness was intense. She felt the press of eyes looking down at her. Colored shadows shifting beyond the edge of her sight. "No that's just it, I can't explain it but they're near here! I just know and we need to move!"

Mizumi surreptitiously glanced around the street. "Ayika, what are you talking abou...oh _zamat_! There he is."

A new figure was climbing out of the smashed ruins of the shop's interior. There was the mask, blue and red with a great frowning brow, but its owner was holding it in his hands instead of wearing it. It was a young man Ayika did not remember seeing before. He was breathing heavily and as she watched he stumbled over the jagged hole smashed through the wooden storefront. This was a far cry from the speed and power demonstrated by the Masks in the hilltop fight. He didn't look capable of ripping metal apart with his hands right now. Ayika examined the young man's face. He was looking at the mask in his hands with some expression that was not fear and was not desire but was somewhere between the two. There was apprehension she had not seen when last she watched men holding those masks. Then bells began to ring out from the distant neighborhoods and his head snapped up with along with everyone else on the street. Every resident of the city recognized those harsh clanging bells. The city guards had arrived and they were closing down this district.

Lili exhaled in obvious relief. "Oh, thank all the spirits of the earth. The guards are finally here. What under heaven took them so long?!"

Xinfei was doing some mental risk calculation. "Ayika, I have reconsidered your suggestion and would like to change my vote to 'run'. Let's slip away right now. We can...Woah wa!"

Suddenly at her side Xinfei yelled in abrupt surprise and Ayika felt a sudden pit in her stomach but by the time she looked back the man with the mask was gone. Dust swirled in an upward cloud and those rioters around where he had been looked like they had seen something that suddenly made them rethink their role here. Ayika whipped her head left and right but did not see the Mask anywhere.

"Motherless son of a pig! What was that?! He just jumped straight up to..." Lili could really swear when she wanted to.

Ayika looked up and saw a leaping shadow moving across the rooftops in under the dim stars drowned in lamplight. A shadow that moved faster than any climbing man should manage. It was moving with incredible strength in the direction of the ringing bells. All the street-side dissidents were erupting in divided opinion as to what to do now with the guards coming so it was easy for them to slide out of the group and around a corner. Mizumi nodded to Ayika and grabbed Xinfei's wrist as he stared at the roofs in disbelief. They ran through alleys in the night.

Down here at the foot of the Fifth Hill, Ayika and her friends had left the mansions and compounds of the great merchant families and were in the realm of prosperous but closely packed homes and businesses. Strangely, it actually looked richer than the Hill proper since these residents could not afford to conceal their homes behind tall compound walls. The streets felt narrower as well since each block of buildings bulged out on the second floor to make the most of this valuable belt of real-estate. By the third floor the roofs almost kissed. Still, these narrow lanes were deserted and Ayika thought they might get free of the cordon the guards were undoubtably setting up around the Hill. Then they reached a point where their chosen side-street joined a wider road that wove down the hill from up above. Ahead they could see a wide intersection where numerous other streets and roads branched off and vanished between buildings and a drifting misty haze that tonight hid the unplumbable depths of the city. However, that view was quickly removed.

Two unarmed men stood at the mouth of their escape. They wore green robes badged with the yellow circle and square of the government. Moving as one, they smoothly sank into stances as their hands closed into fists. The men were twenty meters distant but every one of Ayika's friends froze like a knife was held to their neck. Distance mattered little to those who knew the magic of the earth. The two men stepped forward in unison and brought their arms up in sharp powerful motions. Answering the command of their bodies a large stone slab slid up out of the ground by magic power forming a solid wall three meters tall.

The earth rumbled under Ayika's feet as other stones shifted around beneath the surface to hold that new construction up. This street was sealed. Xinfei swore something foul and gestured down another small side-street. He said, "Damn it! They're raising the blocks already. Quick! We need to run now before they finish encircling this district! Why'd the government choose tonight as the time to be competent?" Seeing Lili was as slow on the uptake as she was to catch her breath he grabbed her hand and pulled her back to a run as they darted away.

Lili was breathing heavily as she struggled to keep the pace. "Anyone. Want. To. tell. me. why. we are. running. from. the guards? I thought. that was. what. we were. waiting for!" She managed to say as they stumbled down another dark alley. Every window and door here was barred and shuttered. On a night like this no one would choose to look outside.

Ayika did not have the energy to explain to another rich girl why the guards were not your friends. "Mizumi?" She said. "How about you take this?"

The Fire Nation woman was quick in her response. "Your government suspects my involvement in murder and arson. Xinfei was badly beaten during an interrogation. And Ayika tried to slap a Public Safety agent last week." Huh, when Mizumi said it like that it sounded really bad.

"Wow," Lili said. "You guys. do have fun. don't you?" Under her panting she sounded impressed and a little envious. She was an odd girl that one.

They turned the next corner only to see another huge slab rise into place across the mouth of the street with final grinding rumble. "Damn it again!" Xinfei swore. An agile person could climb up the adjacent buildings and make it over the barricade but not even a fool would do so with government earthbenders waiting on the other side.

Xiaobao said, "Come on guys, we have to keep trying." He looked around, obviously completely lost but wanting to make a show of reassuring leadership. "How about if we...wait, what's that? I thought I saw something." He was looking up the intersection towards the Hill. There was motion in the dark up the street. The distant gas-lights illuminated shapes like something rolling rapidly down hill. Something small and man-sized. No person could run that fast. At least no normal person.

There was no way to answer how but Ayika instinctively knew what it was. Her gut twinged with fear. "Masks. They're coming to fight the earthbenders."

Mizumi was blanched even as her cheeks were colored with exertion. "How do we find our way out? Lili, you live here! You should know these streets!"

"I don't go walking! Father doesn't...there is always someone with me who knows the way!"

"Quick! Hide!" Xiaobao shoved them into a small alcove formed by some uneven architecture in the side of a building.

Then off to the side, Ayika saw the shadows of a different running figure fleeing from the Hill. In the dim moon and distant lamplight she could just make out a dark robed shape and hear the sound of their boots on the street as they hurried away. For a moment they stopped and glanced back, noticing Ayika's group as well. Then they raced off. That was not one of the Masks. They might be other scattering protesters trying to escape the encirclement. Everyone would to be trying to get out and this person moved like they knew a way. She yelled, "Come on, this way! We can follow them!"

Xinfei had missed sight of that fleeing protester and said, "What?" but Ayika was already running so he had no choice but to chase after her. Come to think of it, how was she able to identify that this dark shape was not one of the Masks? She hadn't seen their face. She was operating on pure instinct. She heard the click of nail shod boots ahead. There had not been much time for personal reflection. Now they were dashing through a narrow alley. The moon was rising and she was grateful for the light.

Mizumi threw an arm upwards to point as she ran along. "I think I saw someone on the roof up there!"

"Another of those masked guys?"

Ayika knew it was not. "I don't think so!" She had thought that those masks exerted some sensation that everyone would notice but she seemed to be the only one who made note of it. A slight turning in the winding path between looming apartments and she saw her way clear to a vacant misty street glowing faintly in the gleaming of the rising gibbous moon. Drifts of vapor made things slide in and out of view but she thought she could see the dark figure they had been following holding still at an intersection far ahead, perhaps catching his breath. Soon that same unseasonable fog would hide him as well. She slid to a stop by a blank brick wall to gather up her friends. Back the way they had come, yells and screams sounded out punctuated with the sound of falling, breaking stone. It was the sound of a fight, one between those much more powerful than her.

Xiaobao came to a halt beside Ayika and looked at their potential escape path. He grinned with relief despite his heavy breathing." _Fhew_! That looks like a way out of the district! And no sight of guards or any-"

Something flew out of the dark to hit him hard in the arm. He screamed. There was the wiz of more dark shapes and clumps of living rock thudded and clamped into place around his wrists and ankles. With a sudden jerk Xiaobao flew back to smack against the flat brick wall with a loud impact and a soundless gasp.

"Wha-" Ayika barely had time to vocalize before there were more sounds in the night and something hard smashed into her forearms. Then something hit her shins and with a sudden whirl of disorientation a hard impact slammed into her back and knocked the breath out of her lungs. She was hanging on the side of the building like a mounted trophy next to Xiaobao, held tight by stony bonds on each limb. Two more thuds and Xinfei and Lili were similarly pinned to the wall. Lili was screaming.

But one of them was still free. Somehow Mizumi managed to twist like lightning and avoid the first projectile striking down from above, leaving it smash agains the street. Ayika yelled out, "Mizumi! Just ru-!" But no matter how skillful the marital-trained girl from foreign lands was the second attempt by their unseen assailant caught her. A shot from the night formed a manacle on her arm anchoring her to the air by invisible magical force. Her shoes scraped across the dirty alley floor as she tried to resist the draw but she was pulled back to the wall where Xiaobao was straining and pulling against the restraints with all his considerable might.

Somewhere to her left Xinfei cried out, "Ayika, if we-!"

Then the world turned black as there was a loud cracking sound and her patch of brick wall flipped around like it had been built on an oiled hinge. Ayika was still hanging from her four stone shackles but when as her eyes adjusted she was inside some back stockroom of a shop. This she saw by the flaring light of a single candle lit by a sulfurous fire-stick. That light was held in the hand of the false gardener Ma'er. They were the captives of the rogue earthbender, the mask-hunter.

...


	29. Hide

...

The light was low and flickering in the stockroom. It accentuated the rough scars on Ma'er's cheeks and made his eyes vanish in shadowed sockets. His dark green clothes melted into black. Ayika twisted in her stone bonds to see the rest of her friends hanging next to her, their patches of wall flipped by the same magic that captured them. The earthbender looked Ayika deep in the eyes and gave a similar glare to Mizumi who panted as her muscles strained against the hold on her arms and legs. Then Ma'er spoke.

"Really, this is getting to be annoying. How are you two girls at every single point of trouble in the city?"

Ayika was tired, bruised, winded and held captive by a ruthless bender while the guards closed down the city to shut them in with a riot. Masks were bestowing magical powers to people who hated her race and the streets were burning. She had to agree with him about their talent for finding trouble, not that she would admit it. Silence was probably the wise course here. Unfortunately, whatever anti-instincts customarily governed Xinfei's behavior now compelled him to speak up and make a correction.

"Actually, I was at each of those places as well. You know, with Ayika and..."

As far as Ayika could tell Ma'er did not even look at Xinfei as he trailed off. Instead their captor focused on Mizumi who had realized that fighting the earthbending hold that fastened her to the brick wall was hopeless as long as Ma'er was maintaining it with his power. She sagged slightly but met her captor eye for eye all the same with all the fierceness one hanging from a wall could manage.

Mizumi said, "I say that we might be lucky in that way. There are many interesting things in this city, at many places and times. It is after all, as you say, the center of the civilized world." Her accent was strong under her heavy breathing.

Ma'er gave an indecipherable snort. And they were still alive. By Ayika's calculation the fact that they were not already dead meant they were now unlikely to suddenly become so. In fact of the men she had come across in the last hour this one seemed a little less likely to murder her. This was the second time she had been at this man's mercy and she was still unharmed. In that case she had some questions of her own for him. She may have been manacled to a wall but after everything that had happened since Lizhen's final night she was owed answers by someone. Asking few questions could hardly worsen their position. She called out to Ma'er.

"What about you? You're a whole lot more suspicious than us, I think, huh? You threaten Professor Lizhen but then you attack the mask wearers who killed him. The murderer stole something you gave to the professor. And then you're here tonight with those super powered freaks and decide to capture us! Which side of this are you on?" As she spoke her voice grew angrier, confusion and fear mixing together into frustrated rage.

Ma'er looked at her with something that was almost pity under his steady eyed surprise at her outburst. "Sides do not come in pairs, remarkably well-informed girl. I am myself."

Ayika ignored Xinfei franticly shaking his head at her in the corner of her eye. "Then who are you with? Someone called you the Hunter, I'm guessing of Masks, and yet those Masks are out there and you're doing nothing to stop them!"

Ma'er did not bother meeting her eye to answer. Instead he inspected each of the other captives in turn. "Those, persons, are currently clashing with the city guards. I acted too late tonight. That is regrettably becoming a trend." He exhaled sharply and turned his eyes to look into the vague distance of this cramped and dusty room. The rest was delivered as if answering Ayika's questions was utterly inconsequential. "I warned Lizhen the day he was killed. Warned him at the same time I asked for his help with..." Ma'er spoke haltingly as if he was used to being able to discus things in such a manner until some recent development. The bender stepped back slightly and the single candle on its shelf faded him to a dim orange figure in the shadow. When he spoke again it was in an absent tone. "When you are in a private war, expert help is greatly appreciated. I asked Lizhen to identify one of the masks I had recently taken from those fools, one that looked different. Like it was made in the Fire Nation style."

Mizumi spoke up. "Well, they all do in a way." Somehow she managed to shrug within her bonds.

Ayika twisted her head to the side, Ma'er momentarily forgotten. "Wait, what do you mean?"

Mizumi writhed against the wall to find a more comfortable position. "I said as much on the first time I saw the Initiated in the water-side building. The mask style looks like that I saw in traditional celebrations out the eastern islands of the Nation. Plays and such. You know, an actor's mask. But that might look like many other places as well. Ours are not emblems of great power, they are just costumes. Do your theaters here use masks too?"

Ayika turned back to Ma'er. "Yeah, and while we're at it why do those Mask guys keep getting stronger? When you fought the Masks in the warehouse they moved like expert fighters while just being normal people. Now they can rip metal lamps out of the street! They punch through walls! Why?" She paused, her brain collecting things it had been receiving throughout this hectic night. "Does it have something to do with the colored shadows around them getting more pronounced?"

Ma'er was about to say something harsh before he stopped and asked, "Colors?"

From further down the wall Xinfei piped up again. "Yeah Ayika, what colors are you talking about?"

Ayika was done dissembling. She needed answers. "Xinfei, now's not the time to play dumb. You saw them up close on top of the hill. I'm talking about the aura or whatever those 'Initiated' gain when they put on those masks. Like they are being possessed by colored shadows. I mean it is probably just the magical effect but..." She trailed off as she realized that she was receiving an unexpected reaction.

Ma'er was genuinely surprised. Xiaobao and Xinfei looked at her with concern and Lili was just confused. Mizumi was inscrutable.

Xinfei twisted awkwardly in his bonds as he hung from the wall. "Um, Ayika. I didn't see anything like that and I was right next to a man who put one of the masks on. And anyway there must be something more going on. Whatever's been done to those people how could it be from a plain wooden mask?"

"What do you mean you didn't see anything?" Ayika said. It was night but there had been enough light to clearly see the insubstantial smoke boiling off those men's bodies. Or was it. Maybe she was just losing hold of her mind. Her shoulders were aching from hanging off bricks.

"That is enough." Ma'er decided that now was the time to regain some control of this interrogation. After all, these kids were the ones fastened to the wall. He began again, although this time his eyes were focused on Ayika. "You children are chasing leads on Chen Lizhen's death. That is dangerous. Tonight you saw the power that got aimed at the merchant Gaoli's house and what I need to know is-"

"Oh! Yes, is my family ok?" It was apparently now Lili's turn to interrupt. "Did we lead off the crowd that was targeting them in time? They didn't break through the gate did they?"

Ma'er froze in the middle of his sentence. He looked at Lili, taking in her green silk robes now rather dirty from their headlong flight through the night. There were characters in the seal that decorated her cuffs. "And this is Gaoli's daughter," he said flatly, without inflection as if nothing could surprise him now. "Of course it is. I don't suppose one of you is my man Tian in disguise?" The sheer improbability of this group in front of him seemed more exhausting than keeping their restraints in place. He relaxed his clenched hand and the four of them found themselves able to stand under their own power as the wall released them.

The five of them stumbled to the ground as they regained their feet. Ayika resisted the urge to rub her wrists where they had been scraped by the magic stones. Instead she concentrated on keeping the relief out of her voice. "Tian. Is that your assistant's name? The one who came with you to see Lizhen at the school? No, I have not seen him since I cornered him the night of the warehouse fire."

Ma'er burst forward. Suddenly he was half a meter from her face and Ayika's heart began o beat with fear again. This man could tear through buildings with a flick of his wrist. His voice was deep and growling. "What?! He was there? Tian was at the meeting?"

Ayika took a half step back and bumped against the wall. There was nowhere else to go. "Yeah?" She swallowed. "He was trying to get something to you. Or no, wait. We had thought you were the man in the mask since we snuck into your house and found your secret room of masks, which thinking back I guess are trophies or just stuff you stole from the nationalists." There was the sound of a single nervous giggle, quickly suppressed. Apparently Lili found their kidnapper's reactions entertaining. Ma'er was now holding a knuckle against his forehead as he closed his eyes.

Ayika continued as she tried to get her thoughts in order. "He... Tian you say I guess, arrived at the warehouse meeting right before you burst in. He was talking about how he tried to stop someone from killing Lizhen but they were too strong. When you started fighting the Masks he was terrified, but I think he was scared of you as well. And then he just disappeared. By that point the building was on fire." That had been... had that only been three days ago? If she was in fact loosing her mind, then she had an acceptable cause in all this stress.

Ma'er looked up at the dark ceiling of the storeroom. "Tian, what did I get you into?"

Mizumi was tapping her foot. She looked like she was ready to start trying to beat the earthbender with her bare hands. "Whatever you are referring to is, we are in to it too. Teacher Lizhen was killed. My father is suspected of his murder. Xinfei was beaten. Lili's home was attacked. Ayika has... In my estimation an explanation is owed. Something is going very wrong in your city."

"You're Dai Li aren't you?" When Xiaobao spoke it was a surprise. He had an expression of careful reflection on his face as he faced Ma'er. "Or you were. The old kind, before they became Public Safety. You retired but you still do the duties." Xiaobao's mind did not whirr and overheat like his brother's but he had a talent for looking at a person and instantly understanding the story of their life. On this occasion, as soon as Ayika heard it she knew it to be true.

Ma'er regarded the five of them wearily. He looked like he wanted to continue his own interrogation but some thought deep behind his eyes caught him. Eventually he appeared to decide that giving these impossibly nosy young people some information could not possibly make matters any worse. "I watched the student nationalists in the early days. I sympathized with those boys' mission. Patriotism. Protecting the city in small ways. In the days of Long Feng it was my mission. It is the duty of the gifted, the benders. I helped keep the government from cracking down on those boys in the secret ways I could. But then they received new leadership. The boy nationalists were joined by dangerous people, and they began to attract attention. Powerful attention. And those dangerous people began to do harm to the city."

"And so you went to war with them," Xinfei said. His tone was almost that of admiration.

Ayika began to recognize the timeline. Zhangyi had spoken of the days when then nationalists were only a student protest movement. "That change. That's when the Initiated began. When they first saw the masks."

Ma'er nodded. "I hired Tian for a reason. When this came around he volunteered to join the nationalists to learn more about their new leaders. And he did. He learned that the group had become secret society with membership rituals centered around those who were awarded the right to wear those masks. Someone was guiding them. Their methods were turning violent. Tian was rising in the ranks, secretly reporting back to me. He managed to tip me off to a meeting they said was very important and I broke it up, stealing several of they masks they were protecting in the process. I brought the most significant example to Chen Lizhen as he was an expert in many esoteric topics. That night Tian was going to meet the Initiates' leader and tell me his identity. But Tian said the meeting was canceled and then the next morning Lizhen was dead. Then Tian disappeared the next day and I had to suspect he was dead as well. But if he was at the warehouse..." He trailed off.

Collecting himself, Ma'er said, "Lizhen instantly recognized the mask I brought him. He was terrified, but he would not tell me what it was. He said it implicated someone who could not possibly be guilty. I demanded he tell me but he said he did not want to start a war. He promised to tell me more once he neutralized the danger, whatever it was. But someone got to him first."

Ayika spoke up, more to herself than anyone else. "Lizhen knew what was happening. The Masks are getting stronger each day, they can already fight earthbenders. And there's something else wrong. People are... I don't know. Something feels wrong in the city these days. This is not just some political fight. Lizhen knew how to stop all this somehow and they killed him. But they stole back the mask you'd given him. If he was the only one who could figure it out then there'd be no need."

Mizumi burst in. "Then that mask has must be evidence that will implicate the one who is leading the nationalists! And Tian was holding something that night at the waterfront. Something he kept hidden in the bag. It might be the key! We must find him!"

Xinfei shook his head against this enthusiasm as he joined the debate. "Tian must be hiding. They'd already killed the last person who held that mask and he's afraid. Afraid even with this guy's protection. And we don't even know where his true loyalties lay. It looks to me like he was bringing the mask back to the nationalists, not to the Govenment or Ma'er."

Ma'er himself had heard enough of this chatter. He was holding his temple like they were giving him a headache. "All right, this interlude has exhausted its usefulness. You children must forget your involvement in all this. The city's bristling with knives right now and people stronger than you are going to end up badly."

"No, stop!" Ayika said. "Who's leading the Masks? They ordered Lizhen dead! I need to expose them!"

Xiaobao put a hand on her shoulder. Until now he had not seemed concerned about the unfolding interrogation. Once he determined Ma'er did not seem likely to be an immediate threat, he let the discussions of conspiracy flow over his head. Instead he had found an old hand lantern on a shelf and had been working towards lighting it. But now he firmly said, "Ayika, calm down and think. This isn't just about one death now. This is big politics. We need to do what this guy says and get out now."

Ayika could not bare to look at him when she felt he might be right. She yelled at Ma'er, "You have to know something! You've been hunting these people for weeks."

The earthbender had turned to gather up his candle holder. With its feeble light before him the rest of the room's occupants were thrown into the deep shadow his back cast. He turned and looked deep into Ayika's eyes. Mizumi took a half step in front of her as if she was ready to launch an attack against the strike she had been expecting all this time. But Ma'er only said, "Listen to caution. You aren't ready for this new war. When I find the Mask's master I will provide justice. Let that be enough and revel in your peace. I have much more work to do tonight. Thank you for telling me of Tian but now your part is done." He moved to leave.

"Oh," He stopped as if something had just occurred to him. "If you ever break into my house again I will kill you all." The candle blinked out and hands of rough stone slammed into Ayika's wrists again as the world whirled in sudden disorientation. She blinked and they were deposited out on the dark street in the dim glimmer of the rising moon behind the growing misty haze. The brick wall was silent and solid. Ma'er was gone. They were alone in the alley.

"You know, that guy's starting to grow on me," Xinfei said. "At least he didn't set anything on fire this time."

"I do not like it." Mizumi had a greater fear of earthbenders than any of the others. To her they were something foreign and dangerous. Natives of the city knew them to be merely dangerous. Ayika noticed the other girl's hands were clenched into fists. When Mizumi got scared she found comfort in aggression. "We should run now. That man could plan to use us as a bait."

Lili raised her hand to speak, an odd gesture out of the classroom. "All right, I have obviously missed crucial details of what is going on but at this moment I definitely encourage running. We should do that."

"She's right," Xiaobao chimed in, his lantern sputtering to light after Xinfei produced a match from some hidden pocket. "We don't know if we've escaped the guard's cordon yet. They were raising up the barricades to seal off this quarter and we've got no reason to believe they stopped. We need to get out of the Middle Ring before we get rounded up as rioters."

Mizumi nodded. "Lili cannot go back to her house tonight. She can shelter with me at my family house in the Exclusion. But we should go now. Ayika?"

Ayika was still looking back at the blank brick wall. From other directions she could see the flickering orange light of fire on misty air and hear the clamor of watch-bells. Ma'er had been right. This was now greater than about justice for Lizhen. The order of the city was fraying. There was danger in the shadows. She turned around and looked off down the alley to where it connected with a street. A stray wisp of fog drifted across, faintly illuminated in the light of the moon just beginning to peak over the horizon. This crisis was bigger than the death of one man, but that did not mean Ayika would stop. This was her home. She nodded her head.

"Yeah, we run for now."

Together the five of them rushed off into the night as somewhere behind them the city guards struggled to contain the nationalist protesters. Somewhere out there were the Masks and somewhere was the one making all this happen.

...

The fog was thick down here off the slopes of the Fifth Hill. Half a block back, there'd barely been a haze of fog in the air but now it felt like they were in the belly of a cloud. The light of the oil lamp Xiobao held was swallowed before it got more than an arm's-length from the wick. Ayika felt Mizumi close by her side, radiating tension as if daring any new ambush to jump out at them. Buildings seemed to leap into existence as they neared and vanish behind like they never had been. Ayika was completely lost.

"This is odd," said Lili's voice from somewhere in the dimness.

"You're telling me," Xinfei said. "Masks and rogue earthbenders and weird magic powers. There hasn't been a single not-odd thing happening tonight."

Somehow Lili managed to make shaking her head audible. "That's not what I meant. I mean this mist more specifically. Fog forms when the movement of the air element can no longer succeed in separating the evaporated water element from coalescing into visible clumps. But the air has been very dry all day and there have been no sudden temperature changes that should have caused this rapid shift."

For a moment the only sound was their footsteps on the stones of the street. Finally Mizumi said, "Lili, how do you know all that?"

"I have hobbies."

"Great. And now there's magic weather," Xinfei said. "Next the clouds are going to come falling down."

"Actually, fog is technically a type of-"

Ayika felt the need to interrupt her. "Not the time. We have to...wait, do you hear something?"

Xiaobao raised up the lantern, an odd way to amplify sound even under normal circumstances. With the short carrying distance of light in these conditions it now served only to shrink their field of view of the street. "I think so." He stopped again, peering into the dense fog. "It sounds like someone's out there complaining rather loudly about...directions?"

Operating on the principle that when lost any direction is just as likely to be the correct one he led the way rough the mist and took a turn as soon as a general sense of leftward emptiness indicated that there was a cross-street to their side. In a few steps their group was out of the fog and on a clear dark street that ran before them under twinkling stars. The change was so sudden and abrupt that Ayika could not help shaking her head in surprise as her eyes were suddenly able to operate at their normal capacity. She turned back to see the strange fog-bank hanging firmly on the other road like a dim and shifting wall. It didn't seem natural. Lili and Xinfei were just bursting through that barrier like swimmers emerging from the depths.

Lili was so startled by clear air that she involuntarily let out a little exclamation. "Eep! Oh thank the King we are done with that!"

Xinfei looked over at her with a delighted smile on his face. "Did you just scream at a lack of fog?" he asked with enthusiastic incredulity.

"I just..." Lili stammered. "Shut up, I still don't know who you are. Look, I think I see the tram line up ahead." She wore a pout but even she could not stop the corners of her mouth from twitching up in reciprocal amusement.

Xiaobao looked around less confidently. "It's nice to be able see but the guards could still be raising the blocks this far out. Until we leave this ring I think we need to be careful. We can follow the line to the gate."

Ayika was looking back at the fog bank they had been lost in. She might not have Lili's knowledge of weather but she had seen her share of fog. This was strange. Suddenly, Ayika saw something. Back in the vaporous mass behind them she caught sight of a human figure, dark and cloaked. She saw them take a single step before the person's motion or some drift in the air hid it from view again. She recognized the outline. It looked like she and her friends had managed to catch up to that person escaping the riot they'd been following before their interlude with Ma'er. Unlike them, this guy in the fog seemed to be striding purposefully, as if he knew where he was going.

She pointed. "Did anyone else see that guy?" Her friends turned around too slowly. "You know, doesn't matter. If other hill people are generally moving in that direction then that means it'll be away from the guards. And it's still the right general direction to the gate. Come on." She took a few steps back towards the fog. No one followed. They'd noticed the creepy nature of the fog as well.

Ayika waved them on. "Guys, it's just clouds like Lili said. And personally, anything that might hide me from the guards' eyes sounds pretty good. It's not like we can miss the Wall once we get near it, so I say we head that way." For a moment it looked like no one was willing to agree with her to follow the rest of the people fleeing the riot. Xinfei muttered something about agreeing with Ayika's proposal to hide from the guards but still didn't move. Then Mizumi stepped forward and took the first plunge into the obscuring mist, breaking the spell. The rest followed, not willing to seem more afraid of their own city than the foreigner. Ayika shook her head, even as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Not everything tonight was magic and conspiracy. Somethings were just odd weather. She just hoped she really believed that.

...


	30. Mist

...

Mizumi was the first to move forward in the direction Ayika was indicating, back into the concealing fog. The Fire Nation woman walked towards the wall of mist and swiftly faded from the pale moonlight. With that inertial barrier broken, the rest followed even if Lili did make a faint groaning noise of discomfort. At once they were plunged back into the black soup-like fog, following those other pedestrians Ayika had seen, people who hopefully had some insight in avoiding the city guards. In any case, they were hidden from the Masks.

The dimly echoing sounds of someone yelling that they had heard before drifted in the curiously deadened air and were now growing closer. Every once and a while Ayika caught a brief glimpse of other walkers up the street heading in the same general direction but no matter how leisurely they were walking her group could not seem to gain and distance on them. For Ayika's less keen-sighted friends they were alone on this dark street where they could only out the very nearest buildings on each side. Lili was by now all but clinging to Xiaobao's side, either for his muscles or his lantern. It was a creepy way to travel but least if they encountered the guards here some noise from the groups walking up ahead would give them warning. Ayika kept telling herself that as at her side Mizumi flexed her fist repeatedly and squinted in to the blackness. Soon enough there was a glow down the opaque distance. Someone else with a few lamps was stopped in the middle of the street and yelling. Strange shadows moved in front of the light, showing several shifting figures.

Mizumi leaned in close to Ayika's ear. "Actually, this mist is unsettling me as well. We should try to...Oh _zamat_! We know him!"

She had just caught sight of the loud men ahead through the fog. Or rather it was one man hefted up on a sedan chair, four employees carrying said chair, and four men on foot with thick wooden sticks hanging from their belts. The man was Sub-Minister of Poetry and Worthy Expression Chao Erliao and he was in a foul mood.

"Honestly! We saw these threads of fog in the streets from up at that fool Gaoli's place. How have you clods managed to lose your way out? I think we are getting much too close to the south canal, or else we wouldn't be stuck in this cursed fog bank. And watch the motion! You almost upset the lantern!"

The porters did not appear to be participants in this conversation but that did not stop the Sub-Minister. Under the surface of his complaining there was an unsettled wariness. The one servant who was also holding a lantern was focused very closely on it as if holding this light left no spare attention to get involved with his boss. Erliao was looking around frequently, but he did not seem to have seen Ayika and her friends yet. He continued to grumble, "If some hooligan had not managed to steal my rickshaw I wouldn't be in this situation. I would be back at the Inner Ring already. I suppose the hauler is out getting drunk somewhere and left it unattended. Damn this fog."

Now Lili was at Ayika's other shoulder. "Is that Erliao? Why is he still...you know, that doesn't matter. I can make this work. He can help us get past any guards without problem. We just might want to present the right..." She moved to the front of the group and gently pushed Ayika back behind Xiaobao. After a moment of thought she did the same for Mizumi. When met with skeptical stares she shrugged. "What? He hates foreigners and we want him to help us so we might want to control first impressions. You work with what you've got and he seemed to enjoy being kind to young women before." She posed with her hand in front of a coy smile.

Recognizing that they did not have much to lose from following Lili, and that being arrest was otherwise a very really possibility, the rest of their group let her take the front position as they moved up.

Lili suddenly sprang forward at a slow nervous trot and when she spoke next her voice was higher and softer than it was usually. She sounded like the breathy lady in a play who was about to be rescued by the hero. "Oh! Is somebody there? Blessed mercy of the spirits under heaven! Excuse me, could you please help me, sir. Oh, Minister Erliao! I am so grateful to see you!" She rushed forward past the minister's hired guards who were temporarily flabbergasted by well-dressed young ladies suddenly rushing out of dark alleys. That was not what they were trained to deal with.

Erliao blinked in openmouthed confusion at Lili's appearance out of the dark, followed as it was by four more young people behind her. This was not a crowd he expected to emerge from the fog. It took him a moment to recognize Lili but establishment of identity did not lessen his befuddlement. "Gaoli's daughter? What on earth is-"

Lili continued with her high pitched lamentation. "Oh, it was so terrifying! When those men with torches came at our gates I, I just had to run! I fear I must have temporarily lost my wits to fright. I am just so fortunate that a few of my family's people followed me and my friend. But when they caught up to me we could not get back! There were awful men all over the streets! It was dreadful. And then I heard the bells of the guards but I was so lost!" Tears appeared streaming down her cheeks. Ayika was impressed. Mizumi muttered something in the islander langue under her breath to which Ayika gave a hushing cluck of her tongue. This was not a performance to criticize, even if that criticism was unintelligible.

Lili was still building in her rhythm, the heat of her personal energy standing in contrast to the cold and clammy air. "And then, merciful heaven, I find someone like yourself, honorable minister! Of all the dreadful villains out at night I managed to find the one noble man walking these streets!" Despite Mizumi's faint grumbling Erliao seemed to be appreciating the performance. It hit the right chords of obsequiousness and pride. Erliao would choose to help them despite this unnerving setting.

Ayika felt a growing prickling on the back of her neck, as if she was being watched by a hundred hidden eyes. Was the fog getting thicker? She could now barely see the shop buildings on each side of the street and all the sounds were strange. This road, of normal width for the Middle Ring, now saw even the nearest shops and apartments fade away in the mist and leave them seemingly standing in a small puddle of light in a vast and claustrophobic plain. And yet some sense told her that there were shapes looming all around her. At her side Mizumi was nervous as well, her hands still clenching and unclenching. But all that girl's protective energy was focused at the party of men before them while Ayika had to fight instincts to frantically whip her head around searching for she knew not what. It felt like someone was approaching.

Whatever had been causing Erliao anxiety had eased now that he was in his element of polite discourse. He replied to Lili with great formality. "Of course I would be happy to escort you, Miss Gaoli. In fact, I will take you straight to to the tram station where you and your friends might obtain government assistance since normal operation has ceased for the night." He smiled. "And if I may-"

He was interrupted by a sudden cry that echoed across the veiled buildings and the deadening air. Words ricocheted between stone walls through the damp and heavy atmosphere. The noise was more like the harsh keen of a bow played across a string than a human voice. It shouted his name. "Chao Erliao!"

The minister jerked in is seat and spun around as his employed men moved in closer to his chair, their hands firmly on the clubs at their belt. The porters holding up the chair had expressions that said they were not paid nearly enough to deal with this night.

The voice rang out from the enveloping blankness. "Chao, you will answer for your crimes! Betrayer!"

Mizumi firmly grabbed Ayika's arm. "It's the Masks!" She might have meant for this to be a private message but her anxiety increased the volume and her voice echoed off brick walls as well. She whipped around, searching the mist for clues. "They must be doing something to control this fog!" After what she had seen tonight that sudden leap in their powers was perfectly reasonable, even if Ayika could not imagine how.

"Don't be ridiculous." Erliao said, loudly dismissing this girl's assumptions. "There is no way that..." here he stopped as some thought or memory occurred to him. A terrifying realization left him wide eyed with fear.

Sudden motion. A simultaneous rush in the mist on all sides. Ayika saw it in every direction at once; swirling action surrounded them with sudden and terrifying speed. The body-men yelled out along with Xinfei. Beside her, Mizumi threw up her fists as she jolted into a fighting stance but there was no target, only rushing confusion of dark and blinding shapes in the night. Then it was clear and there were stars twinkling above. The fog had been magically sucked back and their little group was now standing in a perfect ring of empty night air surrounded by solid walls of mist. The rising moon was perched on an adjacent roof peak and it gleamed down as the barriers of opaque vapor built up in density and height until the Ayika and the others were at the bottom of a vaporous cauldron.

There was the sound of footsteps on flagstones off to the side. A single human figure walked out of the misty delineation into their inexplicable oasis of clear air. The newcomer was wearing a plain, dark colored robe, and their face was hidden by a broad woven hat like a gently sloping cinder-cone. A curtain of beaded strings hung down around its rim. The figure stopped at the edge of the strange wall of mist fifteen paces away and stood with their head bowed. Ayika assumed this was not a gesture of respect but fear and confusion paralyzed her.

The faceless newcomer spoke again under the light of the moon, slow and strong, the tension of cold fury disguising their voice better than any deliberate effort. "I accuse you, Chao. Before the spirits of this land and any other I accuse you of murder." Some dam of emotion burst and now they were yelling as loudly as lungs could manage. "I name you the murderer of Chen Lizhen and there will be justice!" Silence reigned in response as distant echoes whispered back this accusation. The moment stretched in terrified confusion.

"He, he he, ha ha ha!" Erliao's peals of laughter rang out, dissonant in the tension of the unsettled night. Above, the growing fog slowly swallowed the moon as waves of mist built up walls above them to form a dome. Moonlight dimmed. The tension and anxiety that had been growing in Erliao as he wandered this insidious fog seemed to have all dissolved in a second. Ayika had no idea why, she was still terrified. Genuine tears were running down his cheeks as he calmed enough to reply to the flummoxed stranger. "Really? That's what this is? You are mistaken. I gave no order for the death of Chen Lizhen either by my own hand or by request to another. So I swear on all my past lives and those yet to come until the end of the cycle. Whatever you think you know, you are wrong. I gave no order." He wiped his eye clear of relieved tears, still with a strange smile on his lips that lay over a persistent fear. "Is that all?"

The strange figure at the edge of the fog had not expected this reaction. They rocked back a bit and though Ayika caught a glimpse under that hat their face was in too deep of shadow to make out more than a general human shape. But they regained their confidence quickly enough. "You lie," the accuser said and Ayika made note of the timbre of their voice. It was a young man or, perhaps, a woman? "Your villainy is witnessed. You'll come with me."

This display had witnesses now. Other people had come out into the street to observe this spectacle. Ayika saw their shadows lurking within the fog just behind whatever strange barrier kept it clear of the central hemisphere. She didn't blame those folks for not getting any closer. If she was not already within this magically created circle there was no amount of money under heaven that would have gotten her to cross that threshold. These silent spectators to their drama wisely hung back, hidden in the mist. Ayika felt Mizumi press up against her side just as she felt Xiaobao move close on the other side as a looming guardian. Xinfei almost instinctually arranged himself in front of the frozen Lili, although it was a mystery what defense he might be able to muster against this strange display. That mystery woman had power.

Erliao had now crossed another frontier of emotion. He was growing angry. He half stood in his sedan chair. "Who are you? Who dares stop me in the street to make such accusations?" His eyes narrowed. "You would want me to think you a sorcerer. And this spectacle with the fog is impressive. But I think I know these tricks, waterbender." This was said with a note of dark triumph. His men did not seem much comforted. An angry bender was only a step below unknown magic on a list of what a smart person should be afraid of.

The accuser was of the Tribes? The woman, and Ayika could now tell it was a woman, lowered her head as she breathed out heavily. This at least it seems she had expected, if now Erliao's initial reaction. The woman raised her palms up and the men with cudgels waved their weapons in sudden anxiety but her gesture was merely a prayer. "Spirits of this land," she intoned. "Stone ripped free and chiseled. Rivers chained in earth. I call out for justice. The signs've been read, yourselves consulted. Now I ask for confirmation and assistance. Let crimes committed in darkness be dragged into the light!"

Erliao did not like this display of piety. He frowned down at her. "I have had enough. You have no right to pretend to speak to the loyal spirits of this nation." But now he had a wicked smile. "You want me to fear you but I know that the northern tribals do not train their female benders in the arts of combat. Your pretty spectacles with the fog are useless. Men, go teach her some respect."

Two of the men with wicked looking clubs stepped forward. There were grins on their faces as there might be on many who were told they could lay hurt into a bender who had no ability to strike back. Ayika's heart thudded in her chest but the woman did not move, only maintained her pose with palms to the hidden sky which dimly held the distant glow of the moon. Ayika looked out at those citizen spectators hiding in the fog. As much as she wanted her countrywoman to run she feared that these observers would get to see the blood they'd stayed in anticipation of. One of the dark shadows outside the circle now nodded. The others took up that same motion.

The men neared their target. The first one held his club at the ready. He said, "Miss, you really ought to have run when you had the chance." His tone said that he was glad she had not. He drew back to strike.

The woman's palms flipped down and the walls of fog burst forward to envelop them.

Xiaobao rubbed at his eyes at this sudden cool blinding blast. He twisted his head this way and that. "What did she-?"

Someone screamed. Another man grunted in exertion and then gave a loud curse that transformed into a breathless gasp of pain. Then the opaque fog raced back apart like falling water and the woman was standing above two forms twitching on the ground. The collapsed men lay on dark seeping stains, their hands trying to keep those pooling lines from growing larger. Her palms were empty and raised to each side of her. Benders didn't need weapons. The light from Erliao's lanterns fell on her face and she was beautiful.

Erliao saw her face as well. "You!" he screamed in sudden recognition. He'd shown no fear about a waterbender pledging to bring him to justice but one clear sight of this woman and he was terrified once more. His hand whipped within his robes to draw forth a silver whistle on which he began to frantically blow. The piercing sound blasted past his companions' pained eardrums, over Ayika and her friends, to rise above the city's roofs and find the city guards wherever they may be. That was a noble's prerogative, law enforcement at beck and call. However, back in this street, the two remaining body-men knew that no matter how quickly the guards might arrive it may well be too late for them. A bender had just taken down two men in a handful of seconds. The lantern holder hung his light in a bracket on the master's chair. The arms-men tossed their clubs to the ground and drew hidden short-swords from the folds of their robes. Those deadly bladed weapons were very illegal in the city and yet at this moment seemed wildly inadequate for the task at hand. The waterbender stepped closer.

The chair-bearers saw their chance and moved to flee, abandoning the minister and his whistle as the chair dropped. The woman's laugh rose up behind them. "Ha ha! Your friends are leaving you, Chao! And mine remain with all their power!" She swirled one empty hand and the fog rushed like a giant living snake, more vast than an ox. The torch and lamp were extinguished with a hiss. Now the only light was the dim glow of the moon through the earth-hugging cloud above. The shadows of the bystanders in the street moved closer, drawn by this show of violence. One walked near the abandoned sub-minister. Erliao struggled with the impulse to flee but he seemed incapable of movement, his limbs fighting their own muscles in quivering tension. He didn't even look up at the dark figure looming behind him in the thick fog. Its arm reached towards his head as he was paralyzed in his chair.

"We've got to run!" Xinfei said as he grabbed Lili by the shoulders. The men with swords moved forward towards the bender, their blades making sharp swishes in the thick air. The woman waved her arms and fog was sucked down, compacting into hissing lines of pressurized water whose arcs laid open sharp gashes on the men's cheeks. More screams and curses filled the air.

"Ayika! Please! We go!" Mizumi called out, her terror causing her mastery of the kingdom's tongue to dissolve. Ayika had no arguments, but Xiaobao was moving in the opposite direction. It only took her a second to know why. He was moving to reach the two injured men who were lying behind the growing fight of blade and bending. Damn his concern. The spectators in the fog moved closer still. They watched from all angles. One stepped closer.

Xiaobao dashed across the paving stones and grabbed the first downed man. His fellow was further away and looked less able to be safely moved. Xiaobao turned back to the fighting as he moved to heft the injured man, "Guys, we..."

One of the remaining swordsmen dropped his blade with a clang, clutching at a spasming bleeding arm. His leg collapsed under him where woman's empty fingers had passed near, laying open his skin with a needlelike jet of water. He screamed. As the waterbender completed her sweeping turn she saw Xiaobao's shape rising beside her fallen enemies. Ayika ran forward. The woman faced Xiaobao and yelled out, "You should stay down!" Her arms swung in a huge arc as the fog in the air contracted down to a deadly rope that would cut like a knife. Ayika was almost at Xiaobao's side but there was nothing she could do to shield him. Ayika closed her eyes.

A hard punch impacted the waterbender's arm. The racing water whip halted in its contraction and Xiaobao was pelted with hard droplets instead of a slicing stream. Ayika skidded to a halt before him. The bender looked to her side in astonishment to see an Islander girl in her face already in the middle of another attack, fists clenched and eyes glaring. The woman thrust out a hand to block but Mizumi spun on her toes, carrying into her next strike, keeping as close to the woman as she could and out of the range of the deadly bending. Her next punch landed, but the kick was turned away by a sweeping motion of the woman's arm. Then Mizumi's foot came down wrong on damp stones and she was falling, crying out in pain from a water-slice across her forearm even as she hit the ground.

The waterbender jumped back, losing her beaded hat as Erliao's remaining swordsman attempted a stab while she was distracted. Her long hair clinked with small ornaments. A few meters away Erliao was still blowing on his piercing whistle and though he had not risen from the abandoned sedan chair it looked as if he greatly wished to. There was still a dark figure standing behind him, but as the air itself seemed to tremble Ayika no longer thought it was just a citizen spectator. Somehow this shape was holding the minister in place without ever touching him. Dim shadows were creeping closer in the fog from every direction. The waterbender danced away from Mizumi but was now counting the swordsman and Erliao along with Xiaobao, Mizumi, and the other three who had not yet joined. She saw enemies everywhere. She didn't know that Ayika's friends weren't allied with Erliao. She was breathing heavily as she raised her voice once more and yelled out into the night. "There are too many coming! I beseech you, for agreements made, seize them all now!"

Ayika's friends looked around in blind confusion but Ayika saw the circle of shadowy watchers move forward. Ayika's previous assumptions now seemed horrifyingly false. These were not bystanders, The figures which had gathered to watch this confrontation were not even human shaped any more. They were monsters.

Lili heard the waterbender's call and looked back behind her but her eyes stared right through the malformed figure moving her way. Tears were in Ayika's eyes and her visions shifted. A shape like a four armed man with great fangs was holding a purple veil over Erliao, pressing him down into the seat of his downed sedan chair. Mizumi rolled to her feet as she rose to fight the waterbender. Behind her thin figures with limbs like uncooked noodles took needle steps forward as they advanced. She did not hear them. Shadowy tentacles reached from the dark towards the swordsman. A mass like a spider made of brick with a hundred human hands silently emerged from the haze or out of it and raced to move on Xiaobao. A shape with darkly burning teeth headed for Xinfei and Lili, its claws against the stones. No one saw them.

These details flashed in of the corner of Ayika's eye: madness and power, glory and terror. She knew what they were. Spirits. Ayika staggered and trembled. She breathed out and they were gone, she breathed in and they were there again. They glowed in primal colors and wavered in shape and form but they were there, walking among them. The waterbender woman grinned as she panted. The fog swirled and compacted in her hands and she laughed. Mizumi and the swordsman were now paralyzed at her side. They looked around in frantic confusion but did not see the dark figures who held twisted limbs above their heads. They could not move despite their struggles. The spirits where holding their bodies still, ephemeral tentacles or fingers merging through their backs.

The waterbender prepared to strike down Mizumi and the man with the sword before moving on to Erliao. The spirits loomed silently in the mist, glowing with otherworldly power. It was too much. Ayika's head ached and she couldn't see. Fog compacted into a slicing whip, aimed at the girl and the man. The stick-like spirit held its transparent fingertips through Mizumi's shoulders, paralyzing her. Ayika's chest was tight, she couldn't breath. The ground was swimming, up and down were rushing around her. The water blade raced forward. Ayika screamed out at woman, at the shadows, and the world and the walls and the moon above. "STOP!"

And the spirits stopped. The strange and uncertain figures halted in their motion and removed their mystical holds as quickly as they had come. The waterbender gasped in surprise as her slicing attack missed the swordsman who stepped back easily, his face showing new confusion as he dodged away from her slow and careful aim. She'd expected him to be restrained by the spirits, but to him the street was still empty. In the bender's moment of confusion Mizumi's foot shot out to catch the back of her knee. She stumbled and a sword thrust sliced her sleeve, just barely missing her arm. Erliao was rising out of his chair. He ran off into the fog, past strange inhuman forms that now only regarded him silently as he dashed blindly by, his shoes slapping against he paving stones. His whistle screamed out its metal plea for help.

The waterbender yelled out, swirling her arms to create a halo of narrow knifelike arcs driving back Mizumi and the swordsman. "No! You let him go!" She breathed in. She prepared to run after the minister. "No, I can still-"

Drum beats echoed down the street, thin and pitched but numerous in their answer to the dimming sounds of Erliao's whistle. The guards were here. The Water Tribe woman threw her head back and screamed, a pure, throat-tearing sound of thwarted fury that made the swordsman step back by pure force. She whipped around and her eyes stared into Ayika's, dark with hate and confusion. Then the woman clapped her hands together and the fog rushed back in to blind them all.

Ayika was lost in a moonless dark that seemed deep and endless. In that first moment she didn't think she could see her hand in front of her nose and though she heard Xinfei and Mizumi call out for her she didn't move or answer. The physical world felt as thin and ephemeral as the mist around them. She had seen something. She'd seen spirits. No one else had reacted to them. Spirits had attacked them, obeying the waterbender's command. And then they had obeyed Ayika's. It was impossible. At least alone here in the dark she did not have to figure out what all that meant.

A hand touched her arm. "Ayika, are you harmed?" It was Mizumi's voice.

Ayika realized her eyes were closed tight. She opened them and found the mist in the street was already fading. Their attackers, both human and otherwise, were gone. The street was occupied only by the few humans standing in the moonlight. The lone standing swordsman was looking around as he panted, searching for the waterbender, before registering the beating of the guard drums and stashing his illegal short-sword in his robes again. Xiaobao lifted one of the injured men up to his feet, allowing him to lean off the dock-worker's broad shoulders and his unharmed companion rushed over to help once that man realized that he was not the only survivor of the bender's attack. No one seemed eager to chase after the woman wherever she had gone. Ayika heard rushing footsteps approaching and saw Xinfei and Lili approaching as she realized she'd still not answered Mizumi's question.

She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. Did you see..." Looking over she saw how Mizumi was pressing one forearm against her stomach as if she really did not want to move it. "You got hit! We've got to get you help!"

"No, it is just a shallow cut." Mizumi said, but even in the dim moonlight Ayika could see that her cheeks were abnormally pale and there was a slight tremor of shock to her motions. The adrenaline and its pain dampening property was draining away by the moment.

"What is it?" Lili said as she ran over to them. As she turned, her face caught the moonlight and twin streaks of tears glistened on her cheeks. They seemed to be an entirely automatic reaction to the stress void of all the other symptoms of sobbing. Xinfei was now at her side and he continually looked around, acting as reflexive safe-keeper for this group of women though his own hands were shaking from a noxious cocktail of terror, relief, and a preparation to both fight and flee.

Ayika forced Mizumi to hold her injured arm up and into the path of the moonlight. Luckily, there was more light arriving as guards carrying torches began to jog down their street. Erliao must have already been recovered. But Ayika couldn't focus on any of that right now.

"The cut went through your clothing so we'll have to be sure no cloth got caught up inside." She seized the sleeve and with deft fingers felt for the damp slice in the stained fabric. With no mind to the expensive material she seized hold of each side and ripped the hole thrice as big. Mizumi flinched, mostly from anticipated pain as Ayika was sure she had not touched the wound. And there it was, a shallow cut about three centimeters long set at an angle along her forearm in a area heavily darkened with smudged blood.

Ayika did not allow herself to dwell on the blood. She'd seen enough before. "Well, it looks clean and neat. It's not that bad. I'll have to wash it out and look at it better when I sew it but for now..." She drew forth a small pocket from her belt with a folded bit of clean fabric she kept out of long habit for occasions like this. After a moment of thought she also grabbed Mizumi's hair ribbon that she'd placed in her belt earlier. It was wide and though Ayika thought it might actually be silk and thus very expensive it seemed to be a good choice for maintaining pressure on the bandage. She supposed that this also qualified as returning it. Throughout this procedure Mizumi's tension had gradually relaxed and now met Ayika's eyes with trust and thanks.

Xinfei said, "Now I'm not being ungrateful here, but how are you all alive? That waterbender took down three guys in a few seconds and then she suddenly freaks out and runs? Was it the guards getting near? No wait, she still had plenty of time. And what was she doing with the fog? Was she making the droplets hold me somehow? Is that a thing?"

Ayika searched his face but he was being perfectly sincere. He'd seen none of it. Not the watchers, not the spirits, not their sudden attempt to hold them or the equally sudden release. No one else had seen what she had. If that was so then she decided not to mention her own differing account. She had too much to deal with right now. Ayika shrugged in answer to Xinfei and turned back to look at Mizumi's arm but now she noticed that she was being inspected rather closely. Those foreign eyes were watching her with the same searching intensity Ayika had just given Xinfei.

Lili was still having trouble controlling her breathing. "I don't know. And frankly, at this moment, I do not care. I have been in more attacks... in this last hour than in my life till now. I want to get off the streets. I want to tell my father I'm all right."

Mizumi spoke up in reassurance, peeling her gaze off of Ayika. "If Minister Erliao's offer of transportation still stands you can stay in my house tonight. Let us find him. The tram lines are safe and we are closer to the station than we are to your house. That will take us off these streets. We can ask a guard to send a message up to both our fathers informing them where we are." A motion she made set her wincing and she hissed through clenched teeth. "And my grandfather has wound treating supplies. Silver needles," she shuddered briefly. "...and such things."

Even Xinfei no longer had any objection to sticking with the city guards. This night had shaken a lot of convictions. Their little group moved together as a huddle but when Lili broke forward to speak with Erliao and the assembled guards around him, Xinfei whispered. "Just how many factions are there fighting tonight? I was just beginning to digest Ma'er's motivations. And who was that lady connected to? What'd she want? She accused Erliao of murdering Lizhen but the minister guy seemed honestly surprised."

Ayika's brain was finally starting to work again, and it had finally connected a few dots that had been waiting. She said, "I don't know. I mean I don't know everything but...I know how she's connected to the professor." She was met with two incredulous stares and one look of dawning comprehension. "Lizhen had her picture in his office. And I think I know her name."

...

Ma'er panted as he leaned against the cold stone wall. In this pitch black tunnel, the muffled sounds of combat above ground seemed amplified. He shifted his shoulder and bared his teeth to the unseeing dark. One of those Masks had managed to grab hold of him in mid jump and the resulting swing through the air must have damaged something. It had only taken a second to slip free of the hold but for that brief moment this old soldier had felt his death in that iron grip.

The Water Tribe girl was right, the Masks were stronger. These mask-wearers fought like nothing he had ever encountered before. In the past stealth had been his asset. Tonight he had crept along the rooftops hunting for his prey, the very bricks and tiles cooperating with his need for silence as in the distance he heard the city guards belatedly begin to close off the district. A lone member of the Initiated had been down on the street below, calling on his deluded minions to continue in their destruction of the urban order. Tian was not among them. Ma'er had leaned back out of view to collect himself and his stone gloves for the attack. Perhaps some interrogation would yield answers to this increasingly distressing mystery. And then in an instant the Mask had been beside him on the roof.

The Dai Li prided themselves on being able to utilize the bending arts in the city without causing a single yuan of damage. Tonight Ma'er had disgraced his training and it had barely been enough. The techniques he used had ripped apart the top floor of a building and brought the corner of another crashing down, but still the Mask fought back ferociously. Ma'er only hoped he had succeed in preventing collateral casualties but he had to admit that had not been his top priority as he tore apart brick walls and threw up slabs of the street. The Mask had danced around them or burst through with impossible strength.

Down in the dark tunnel, Ma'er rubbed his shoulder and then felt at the wooden mask hanging from his belt. In the end he had won and collected his trophy. But as he had prepared to ask his questions in a very point manner another Mask arrived. And then another.

Even in the tunnel he still heard the sound of distant earthbending from the city guard positions. Frantic earthbending. He didn't know how many Initiated were out tonight but it sounded like more than he had ever seen before and they were now openly fighting with the government forces. Long experience had convinced Ma'er to retreat from this newly improved power. There had been a merry chase and one close call but he had managed to reach a place where he could part the stones to drop down into an old tunnel beneath the city.

Reaching into his robe Ma'er drew forth a clump of crystals hanging from a loop. A touch of moist breath to them and a faint glow began to drift across their surface. A few drops of water and they cast a dim green light that gave the tunnel just enough illumination to discern vague shapes. It would be enough.

Tonight had been a mistake. He had underestimated his enemy again. In the past the nationalist had fled when he arrived, now they hunted him. How were they doing it? He did not know where they got this strength, but it had been getting worse since the political shakeup around the death of Ambassador Naruhama. What had that tribal girl said? Colored shadows clinging around them? He'd seen nothing like that while he fought, only painted wooden masks, but a lifetime in the world of secrets had taught him that no one person ever saw the whole truth. But Chen Lizhen had somehow understood. Lizhen had seen whatever was coming and so he had been killed.

Ma'er knew what he had to do so he began to walk, his footsteps reverberating softly in the dead dust of the abandoned tunnel. No matter how strong the soldiers, without a general any army is beatable. He would find the leader. He would find who was behind this and make them pay for destroying the peace of his city. But he had no leads. Several of the district barricade walls had been toppled by the Masks' attack and so most of the rioters had escaped to lie low in various dark corners of the Middle Ring until the gates reopened near dawn. From what little he had been able to gather listening in on common guards the City knew even less than he did.

He silently emerged back into the moonlit air in an alley that connected to a more populated district. Out on the street Ma'er heard people saying that this night would begin long awaited reprisals. Whether against the reformers or the conservatives, the public was undecided. It seemed that now everyone on every faction gleeful at the prospect of chaos. Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. Rich and poor. They all were snapping at any hint of change, thinking it would be their opportunity. Ma'er knew better. He what a funeral pyre smelled like and by now the city was ready to be lit.

...


	31. Taut

...

When Ayika awoke in her family's apartment the next morning she thought for a moment that she might have actually succeeded in acclimatizing her body to continuous late nights and terror-filled flight. Then she sat up from the mat on the floor and her leaden flesh reminded her that such an achievement was not actually possible. Her little brother was still grumbling face down into the shared blanket, muttering nonverbally about morning and sisters. Ayika was tired to her bones but she had a new job to get to.

That small victory of securing employment at Anyakya's laundry had at least managed to cancel out most of her mother's displeasure at her late return to the apartment last night. The chiding had not necessarily lessened but it had at least not increased. Still, Ayika was not at her most alert as she sat at the low family table mechanically spooning precious nourishment into her mouth. This lack of attention was evidenced by the fact that Oakas managed to slip three spare chopsticks into her braid before she noticed. At least she was still fast enough to rap him across the back of the head in the brief second their mother was looking away and to display appropriate confusion at his exclamations when the maternal gaze returned. Then Ayika was out the door and on to her first formal day as an employee at Mrs Anyakya's Super Best Tribal Wash and Cleaning located on the west bank of Left Leg Canal.

Once she arrived there were other challenges. The counter-girl uniform was as embarrassingly tight as Ayika had expected. The blue costume's fake white trim tickled her calves as she attempted to relearn how to walk when she could hardly move her thighs half a stride. Since her own skirts were slit to the extent that they more like two hanging sheets of cloth and were only decent because she wore trousers underneath them, this was quite a change. Still, she didn't think even this uniform was supposed to be quite this tight across the hips. Ayika may not have had much in the way of height but she had received a bit of the so-called Water Tribe figure. At least she'd convinced the woman fitting her to let the top's front out even if the request had earned her a few dark looks. Dark looks were an acceptable trade for being able to breath comfortably.

Then she was set to work. Mrs Anyakya might have hired Ayika because of her relation to Aka of the Bed but she was still expected to perform the normal duties of a counter girl as well as her fake shamaning. The job was simple enough, never be seen sitting, always greet customers with the memorized spiel, and always make a big deal of 'priority cleaning' while failing to mention that this extra charge had no effect on the treatment the clothing underwent in the back of the building. The store manager also advised her to adjust her posture forward in certain places when male customers came in but for now Ayika was choosing to neglect that bit of wisdom. She was admonished once for entering the arrivals in the ledger-book with proper numbers instead of the talley marks the other girls used, but other than that the morning's work was not unpleasant. There were even periods where she forgot how mortifying her uniform was.

It was around an hour until midday when Mrs Anyakya came by on her inspection of the facility. She strode up to the front counter out of nowhere and held out her hand in a demanding gesture that confused Ayika for several panicked seconds until she thought to present the ledger book. Anyakya gave an affirmative snort and began to scan through the entries as her mouth worked from side to side.

Ayika decided that it would not go amiss to ingratiate herself to her boss. "Mrs Anyakya, I would like to once again thank you for this job opportunity. I hope-"

"Bloody government announced curfew restrictions, those idiots," Anyakya interrupted, talking to herself in a loud declarative tone that suggested she was always talking to her self and sometimes other people butted in with their own opinions. Well, Ayika could go with that conversation line instead.

"Yes, I heard a customer talking about that. Supposedly, they're banning all nongovernment passage through the ring gates after dark since those marchers got up into the Middle Ring last night." It was a typical government response. It was very difficult to track down the precise people responsible for a disruption like that but it was very easy to apply general punishment and hope that the common citizens did away with the criminals themselves out of sheer frustration.

Anykya snorted. "Pffa, lucky that's all they're doing. They've got three dead earthbenders up there if there's any truth to it, and lots of tax-paying people injured." She then abruptly started yelling at someone else despite not changing her posture at all. "Kanirrak! How are we for soap? You diluting it enough? No, don't come out you fool, just tell me!"

There were indistinct noises from behind the curtain but they made sense to the boss as she grunted and nodded. "Course any bender who's fool enough to get killed by normal people might not be such a loss. All the Islander-huggers must be crowing over the ministers' reaction. Their smarmy new Exclusion boss too, Tailang or Talilong or whatever. Whoever took over from old Naruhama. People've seen him heading up to the Inner Ring. Bet he gets more than I ever got from the gov, you can count on that. Those damn conservatives've gone too far with their violence this time and made a noose for our necks."

At that moment there was a clacking as the wooden rods hanging over the door were jostled by a new entrant. Anyakya smoothly scooted to the side out of the way of the counter without taking her eyes from the ledger until she spared a look up and saw just who had entered.

Ayika leaped quickly into her speech. "Hello, and welcome to Mrs Anyakya's Super Best Tribal Wash! Our cleaning secrets handed down from the spirits themselves insure your belongings will get as clean as polar ice. How may I help you today?"

The man who entered was better dressed than most of those who visited this premises. However, it was in a strange and formal style that suggested his clothes livery instead of freely chosen wardrobe. He was of the Earth Kingdoms race but as Ayika squinted slightly at his uniform she thought that it might even be in Islander fashions. So, he was an employee sent from the Exclusion. That was interesting.

"Um, yes, hello." He began, blinking as he looked at Ayika before glancing up to meet her eyes with a flash of disguised embarrassment. "Nice, um, place this is. " He gestured vaguely to the water tribe objects decorating the walls. This time Ayika had made sure that all the idols were thoroughly desecrated and powerless. "My name is Fong. I have not been here before, have you worked here long?" He said in an awkward forced casualness.

If Ayika had met him on the street she would have jabbed him in the chest until he admitted what he was on about. This man did not look like the sort for pointless blather. There was clearly some purpose to his forced small talk but today was her first day on the job and her boss was standing in the corner with folded arms. So she only smiled sweetly and replied, "Actually, this is my first day. How may I help you?"

Fong now looked relieved. He quickly said that his employer in the Exclusion had heard about this business and after some dissatisfaction with their own washerwomen was interested in contracting out the laundry duties for the household. This caused Anyakya to perk up. The woman may have held a dim view of Islanders in general but she had no prejudice towards their money. The contract for a full mansion house was a good get. The man was now explaining that the master would appreciate an employee coming back to Exclusion to answer some brief questions.

Anyakya moved forward, tossing the ledger book back to Ayika. "Ah, and I'm so glad you came to my humble establishment. I am Mrs Anyakya, the owner of this shop, and I'd be happy to come answer any and all questions. We can leave right now if you like." She moved quickly to take his arm in an aggressive reversal of traditional manners.

The man from the Exclusion looked very uncomfortable again. He stepped back away from Anyakya but did not make for the door. "Um, I am sure that as a business owner you are very busy and this would be a waste of your time. A simple employee would be perfectly acceptable. How about this girl here?" He gestured with mock carelessness to Ayika who froze in the process of putting the ledger book away back under the counter.

Anyakya leaned back in surprise. She lowered her brow Fong in his livery. "But you just heard that this was her first day. No, I'll be able to answer any questions and indeed arrange a contract on the spot."

Fong sighed heavily and grimaced as he dropped some of his awkward formality. "Look, the mistress gave me specific instructions. I may not understand them but I do not want to go against them, even if what you say makes much more sense. She said to get the newly hired counter girl, so I fetch the counter girl."

Ayika silently groaned. So it was a mistress now. The mistress of an Islander mansion house. Mizumi. This must have seemed like such a clever plan when the young woman came up with it and indeed it probably would have gone smoothly if Mrs Anyakya had not been standing in the very room. As it was, the plan was sinking in deep water.

"Hmmmm." That same Mrs Anyakya's eyes were now narrowed in great suspicion. The whole situation sounded suspect. But at the end of consideration a large profit was in the offering and all she was risking was Ayika's skin by sending her off with this stranger so she begrudgingly consented. She gave Ayika an imperative gesture of the head that managed to include a great number of threats that she be on her absolute best behavior and not mess up this business deal. Ayika would really have preferred to change back to her normal clothes before walking out onto the street but Anyakya already looked likely to smack her with something. So Ayika slid around the counter to make off after Fong who gave no objection to her outfit other than trying very hard to make it clear he was not looking at her up and down.

The two of them exited through the door and though Ayika was now free of Anyakya's glares she now felt a hundred other eyes on her on the crowded street. She fought the urge to pull down on her dress where it rode up towards her thighs with every step. Her guide clearly didn't have the patience to stop and let her adjust her clothes every three paces. He was anxious and looked around these Harbor Town streets as if he very much wished he was not on them. Ayika could understand why. If she could identify his outfit as Exclusion livery then others could too and today that seemed a bad label to have attached to you. The road was filled with people standing close to each other and muttering, a great difference from the normal City tradition of conducting a private conversation by shouting from opposite ends of the street. People going about their business seemed to be walking a little faster and clutching their bundles a little tighter.

However, one person stood out in this tense milieu, at least to Ayika's eyes. Just off the nearest corner a spiky-haired young man with limbs like a stork was crouched by a bundle of little paper packages spread out on the bricks before him. Great, Xinfei was still out selling his matches instead of working his job down at the docks. At least the little paper boxes no longer showed the Fire Nation symbols. He must have turned them inside out and refolded them. Ayika sighed as she tried to reach down to her knees in mid-stride to smooth down that irritatingly clingy fabric once again. Xinfei would of course say it was a coincidence that he was on this street but she knew he had stationed himself here so he could fulfill a noble-hearted desire to guard her. The gesture was unnecessary and wrongheaded, but sweet. Sweet even if throughout their childhoods she was pretty sure she'd protected him more than the other way around. When she had passed by, Ayika briefly swung her head around and saw him scrambling to gather up his merchandise, presumably to follow along after her.

It was only a few minutes before the tiled spires of the Exclusion began to loom before them. Then Fong and Ayika's path took a quick jag to the right and passed where a basket seller had claimed most of the width of the narrow street for his oversized woven wares. Just a little further on they passed under the kissing eaves of close-pressed buildings that formed an unplanned gateway and they were on the road beside the moat that separated the kingdom from this transplanted Fire Nation town.

Tensions may have been rising in the City but this wide strip of water was still filled with a hundred canal boats weaving across to do every manner of trade with foreign pockets. Here on this side of the water the stone-walled bank was sheer and vertical so the boatmen tossed goods up and down from boat to shore. On the Exclusion side, the Islanders had constructed innumerable tiny docks clinging to the edge of the water under their tall narrow buildings decorated with red pillars. They chose to do their purchasing on a more personal level. That was a clear sign of who was afraid of whom, despite the population difference. However, today Ayika glanced over at of the Kingdom side and saw a knot of rough-looking men leaning against the wall hurling dark glares over the water. She wondered if any of those Islanders were new rethinking that confidence in their security.

The man Mizumi had sent to fetch her, Fong, had been perfectly polite during their short walk but when Ayika froze at the foot of the Bridge of Fire he clicked his tongue with exasperation. Ayika knew perfectly well that her reaction was ridiculous but she had never before set foot on that span, the only solid path to the isle of foreigners. Ahead loomed the narrow spindly heights that gave the Exclusion the air of a large town somehow severely compacted in area without losing any mass. Even with the sun nearly overhead the glass windows gleamed and sparkled under the sharp eaves that rose like the wings of flapping birds, another symbol of the lurking wealth.

At once a thought leapt unbidden into Ayika's mind. Was she a traitor? That idea was completely ridiculous if she put any thought to it but the idea still lurked and tickled her perception. She'd worked all her life to be seen as a citizen of the Kingdoms and not another foreign immigrant, and now when the citizens of the Kingdoms were turning against the foreign Islanders she was allying herself closer and closer with a Fire Nation girl. Of course, Mizumi had proven herself by now. But why had she been so quick to trust Mizumi? Why was she so sure she wanted that woman to be impressed with her? Why did she...

Ayika shook her head and strode forward. Out of one corner of her eye she caught sight of Xinfei sliding through the crowd on the canal bank behind her. He would probably still be waiting for her there by the bridge when she left. He might have a docked ship to work later in the day but there was no way Mizumi could be planning take her away from work for that long. At the far end of the bridge stood red uniformed guards wearing top knots in their hair that glistened with strands the color of russet silk. Those foreign eyes glanced over Ayika without concern as she walked forward. Now she was deep in the shaded paths of the Exclusion where lantern flames burnt even in the day.

...

When Fong led her through a big set of doors just off the narrow Exclusion main street, for a moment Ayika thought he had taken a wrong turn or was stopping on some other strange errand on the way to Mizumi's. This building-front was ornate but it was small, far too small for a rich merchant's house. It sat squashed between two larger, taller structures whose first two floors were filled with assorted shops and businesses. Nearly every building bore signs in the Islander language that used just enough of the Kingdoms' familiar characters to make Ayika think she had suddenly forgotten how to read. Mizumi would live in a grand mansion, not somewhere as small as this.

However, once Ayika hesitantly stepped inside the proffered door she found herself not a normal room in a strange entryway to a long hallway. Somehow, what she took for the front of a small building was just a connecting passage to the true house deep within the block. Suddenly, there was a liveried servant at her side placing a pair of slippers on the elevated wood floor in front of her. For a moment Ayika just stared at them in confusion until she realized that she was being provided a pair of house slippers and that her shoes would not likely be stolen if she left them here.

Fong's raised eyebrow seemed to share her opinion that this level of treatment was unusual for her. Ayika assumed that under normal circumstances tradesmen and servants entered through another backdoor somewhere. She'd seen none outside, but if the Miohuitos had managed to hide an entire mansion in a four-meter wide address then Ayika was willing to give them credit for hidden doors. The hallway leading from that entry space was the longest uninterrupted room Ayika had ever experienced. Every so often there was an ink-brush painting hanging on the wall, blank but for a minimalist image of a single flower or small bird. These alternated with alcoves that held a small glass sculpture or pale white ceramics. Then she and Fong reached the far door, her guide gesturing for her to go through.

The Gaoli mansion in the Middle Ring had been spectacular, but at least it was a natural exaggeration of the pretensions that Ayika saw in every city building with a little extra money. Here wealth expressed itself to a foreign tune. The entire structure seemed to be composed of innumerable levels. This space she had entered was a large, tall room whose upper reaches broke through into several floors above, visible behind the railings that wrapped around. A carpeted staircase occupied one wall and even the ground floor of the great room existed in broad square sections that differed in elevation by a single step or two so that no group of chairs or ornaments stood at the exact same level. The furniture was ornate almost beyond the point of comprehension though Ayika didn't know whether that was a sign of foreign fashion or simply expensive quality. There were no windows on the lowest walls but glass panes punctured the walls of the second floor and beyond.

Suddenly a familiar and cheerfully accented voice called out. "Ayika! You are here! I...wow."

Mizumi was in the middle of her decent on the main staircase when she froze. Color rapidly bloomed into her cheeks as she apparently struggled to get the next word to exit her mouth in the correct language. Ayika was confused by this reaction for a moment until she remembered the costume she was wearing. That uniform really was ridiculous. She knelt down slightly so she could grab the lower part of the dress as she wiggled her hips to make it hike back down. When she looked back at Mizumi was even redder. Ayika felt equal mortification blushing across her face.

"Ah, yeah, um sorry! This is the uniform for my new job. I kind of forgot to warn you how embarrassing it was."

Another voice came from the second floor landing. "Ooh, you have a new uniform? Let me see, let me see!" Lili popped suddenly into view over the railing. Apparently the other girl had not yet returned to the Middle Ring since last night. She raised a single appraising eyebrow at Ayika. "Well, you shan't be suffering for customers. Er, it was a _laundry_ you said you were working at, right?"

Mizumi by now had managed to stop making a faint noise like steam rattling the lid of a pot. "Yes, Ayika! I...I am so glad you were able to come. I was not sure that Fong would be able to find you. Apparently, there are several Mrs Anikya's laundries and I did not know which one you were at. Oh, thank you so much Fong!" The man behind Ayika gave a small bow with a straight and calm face that Ayika recognized as a servant's replacement for rolling one's eyes. Mizumi continued to speak with Ayika, attempting to return to a calm demeanor and only half failing. "Be coming in, we can continue talking in the upper parlor."

Ayika hurried to comply only to discover that climbing stairs had an even greater effect on this cursed dress' exploratory tendencies. She managed to grab it down before the hem reached up above her knees but Mizumi was red with mortification again even as she tried to look straight ahead and Lili was letting out barely suppressed giggles. Ayika sent her a dark look to which the tall and slender girl replied with a playful wave of her hand.

"Oh, don't be like that. That dress may be a bit much but the places it's giving you problems should make me hate you much more than the other way around."

From that landing the three of them went through a set of doors and located another staircase to ascend yet again before they entered another room of near equal opulence, now with bright glass windows on two sides. They were already three floors above the street and Ayika had the impression that the mansion continued still further above. The compact space of the Exclusion had influenced the Islanders' architecture in a very vertical way. Mizumi and Lili casually sprawled onto seats of expensive polished wood and intricately stitched cushions. Ayika sat at the very edge of the plainest chair and tried not to touch anything.

She said, "Um, I'm not going to be able to stay long. This is my first day and I can't afford to lose this job." The last sentence involuntarily possessed the faintest air of a bitter twist for directing it to two girls who would never work a job in their life. Luckily neither of her new friends noticed this involuntary slip.

Mizumi said, "I am sure that it will be fine. I am truly going to follow through on the excuse that got you to come here. And I will give your employer ten percent over whatever she is asking for on the contract which should be enough to excuse any manner of lateness. Be relaxed." She made a dismissive gesture and then winced as her other hand shot towards her arm. There was a bandage on her forearm under her sleeve.

Ayika kicked herself mentally for forgetting Mizumi's injury at the hands of the waterbender last night. "Are you ok, Mizumi? I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask about your arm! Is everything-"

Mizumi smiled, if a little tightly, and shook her head. "All is well. It only hurts a little."

Lili chimed in. "More than a little I should think. I don't know how you stood it. I had to look away when that old man came with his needle and..." She shuddered, crossing her arms and hunching her shoulders against the thought.

Mizumi continued, "I am just lucky that my father has barely been home since last night, else he would have noticed something was wrong and tightened my restrictions on me still further. As things are he will assuredly give me punishment for running off from the Gaoli mansion into the night. The only reason he has not done so yet is he has been with Trade Representative Tailang for all of this morning. My grandfather is the only one who knows about my injury and he will not say anything to him."

Lili said, "Your grandfather was an... interesting old man. I do not think he spoke more than twenty words of our language and ten of those were filthy. Still, he seemed nice."

Mizumi very gently rolled up her sleeve to show Ayika the bandage. "He learned the Earth Kingdom tongue in the army along with his wound care. During the war. He was discharged with honors which he says was a miracle after how he behaved. He told me that this will likely leave a scar but he also said that no one can find a lover until after they get their first scar." Here Mizumi suddenly clipped off her speech as if that was not an appropriate anecdote. Ayika had heard far worse.

Lili was not paying attention to those digressions. "Luckily, both our fathers seem to have believed our story that their little girls 'panicked' and ran out the back of the mansion when the guards started moving up the hill to clear the streets. Erliao was vague enough with his explanation of the events in the fog that the fathers received the impression of a time frame that would have not exposed us to any real danger. Just two fools running to the men in uniform. In any case it's better than the truth of our little excursion. And speaking of crazy ex-Dai Li and minister Erliao..." Here she leaned forward with elaborate seriousness. "We're alone now. Can we talk about what by the name of the first king happened last night?!"

Mizumi had all ready filled Lili in on their previous encounters with Ma'er and the Masks, but she had no insight to offer on the mysterious waterbender who had attacked them or why she had accused Erliao of Lizhen's murder. On the truth of that accusation, Lili was in inclined to believe the mysterious would-be captor's claim while Mizumi thought that Erliao's reaction to the accusation was not that of a guilty man. While the sub-minister's politics might align with the conservative Masks, he had seemed very afraid of remaining near them. And he had sounded genuinely surprised to be accused of murder. For the mystery of the nationalists and the Initiated themselves, Mizumi and Lili had come to the conclusion that the Masks must be unitizing some strange bending technique to explain their seemingly supernatural strength. They differed in the specifics but neither had even mentioned spirits in any capacity other than sacrilegious profanity. Ayika decided not to offer her own thoughts on that.

But there was another bit of information else Ayika could offer; something she had mentioned last night but had gotten lost in the confused exhaustion of the flight back to Kuang Harbor. "The waterbender was the same woman whose face was painted on the card in Lizhen's office. Mizumi, you saw it when we searched the place. I've got a likely suspect for who she could be. There aren't many waterbenders in the city and most are men from the north employed with one of the Ice Seller clans. But I've heard of a Mama Mua, a healer and fortune teller on Flowing Water street. She's rumored to be a bender."

Mizumi furrowed her brow. "You do not know for certain? And why do you think this person is the woman in the fog?"

Ayika's thoughts answered silently: Because that woman could command spirits and people have been going to Mama Mua for spirit charms. Mrs Anyakya had been complaining about her workers going to the fortune teller. Because the only other woman of the tribes I know who claimed to speak with the spirits was my own grandma and this woman seems to have taken her place in town.

She instead said aloud, "That wasn't northern tribes waterbending. I've never heard of anyone using fog to fight like that. And Erliao was right, the north doesn't really train their women in combat. But I've heard this Mama Mua is from the lost tribes down in the hot provinces. Who knows what they teach their benders there in those swamps and rivers?" Did they teach them how to command the spirits? Did they know why the spirits would stop when an unimportant laundry girl told them to?

Lili looked skeptical but willing to take Ayika's reasonings at their face value. "Hmm, that's not a lot to go on. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to pay her a visit." She tilted her head to the side and shrugged. "If it isn't the same woman then we can just get our fortunes read and be on our way. It could be fun to slum it a...um, to explore the Harbor Town."

Mizumi jerked back in surprise at this casual attitude to the mystery fog bender. "That tribal bender was dangerous! She was trying to capture a government official in the street. You saw that she did slice up three of the men with swords. She tried to go after me and Xiaobao! You want to sit across from her and ask for a fortune?"

Ayika shook her head. "She didn't want to..." Here she looked at the bandage peaking out under Mizumi's sleeve and changed what she was about to say. "I don't think we were part of the woman's plan. She'd come to confront Erliao. In the thick of it I don't think she realized Xiaobao wasn't one of his guards. Even if she was controlling the fog it would've obscured her sight just as much as ours once she stopped drawing it back into that clear air bubble thing. But whatever the danger, she knows something about Lizhen's murder. I think it's worth it to check her out." She threw up her hands. "We've got no other leads. If the Masks are growing bold enough to attack Lili's house in the Middle Ring then the entire city's in danger, not just us. Someone has to figure all this out."

There was a little knock at the open door of the parlor, a quiet noise that startled Ayika more than a large sound would have. She had never lived anywhere that did not share at least three thin walls with other families so these mansions were unnervingly quiet. Fong the servant was standing in the doorway. "Miss Gaoli, a message has arrived message for you from your father."

Lili held out a hand to her side without getting up from he seat. "Yes, I expected this." Fong moved in to place the letter in her palm. He gave Ayika a brief look which said he did not approve of someone like her sitting like a guest in his mistress's house. But he was too much of a professional to let Mizumi see any hint of that disapproval. Instead he said to Lili, "The men your father sent are awaiting outside in the carriage yard."

Lili was already reading the message. "Hmm? What? Oh, that's fine I...Shoot!" Now she hopped out of her seat and began pacing while waving the paper around in a way that expressed her frustration but also made it very difficult for her to finish reading. "My father demands I return back to the Middle Ring immediately. He says it isn't safe for me to be outside the compound. As if those same gates were not just attacked last night! Mizumi's place didn't get mobbed by anyone! Your people would have set them all on fire! How can he think trekking back across the city right now would be safer?"

Mizumi wrinkled her mouth at the insinuation about her people's propensity to violence as Ayika chimed in to calm Lili's worries. "Emotions on the street've died down a bit for today. Things like last night take a while to build up pressure for so you'll be fine just going up to your place. Promise."

"But I was going to go with you to the tribal fortuneteller! Now I have to walk back through the streets unguarded all the way to the tram station!"

Mizumi said, "I will send you off in a carriage to the transport line and Fong just said that your father sent down several men to watch over you."

However, Lili was not to be quieted. "Great!" she said sarcastically. "Do those men know what Ma'er looks like? He threatened to kill us! Or would they spot that waterbender, or have they seen what the Masks can do? We have a lot of enemies, apparently!" She flounced down onto her seat again as her apprehension slowly built. "I guess I was counting on you and your gongfu skills, Mizumi. You actually fought that tribal woman hand to hand. It was amazing! I don't want to be alone with people who have no idea what is going on."

This perhaps overgenerous estimation of her combat abilities amused Mizumi but before she could speak Lili had another idea. A thoughtful smile ticked at the edge of her mouth. "Say, Ayika, where's that big strong dockworker fellow from last night? He lives in the harbor, is that not right?"

"Xiaobao?" Ayika chuckled at this description of him. Some things never changed, and Lili had lingered a bit when she accidentally touched his chest last night. "Not going to get a hold of him today, he's probably at the water waiting for the Miohuito ship to come in." Lili put her head in her hands at this newest hope being crushed quickest. "But..." A thought came to Ayika, one that might ease the minds of two overanxious figures. "His brother should be right outside the Exclusion bridge. I saw him selling his matches there as I came in."

Lili looked up hesitantly. "The skinny one?"

Ayika dismissed this. "Don't let him fool you. Xinfei works the same strenuous jobs as Xiaobao." When he showed up instead of going off on schemes. "You can't make your money on the docks without being strong. And if you want someone for sniffing out intrigue, well, Xiaobao's pretty...straight-forward. Besides that, the only difference between the two of them is about four years. Take that away and they could'a been twins." She could not predict the future but Xinfei's frame had to fill out one of these years. And it was truthful to say the brothers had once looked very similar before Xiaobao's teenage blossoming.

Lili took a sip of her tea as she made a noncommittal but intrigued noise. "Hmm?"

Ayika smiled inwardly. Xinfei, you owe me for this. Talking him up as a protector for a nervous, pretty, rich girl should cancel out a few of their recent arguments. Ayika knew what boys liked. If nothing else Xinfei and lili had equally troublesome imaginations and might serve to keep each other out of greater trouble. Or they would start trying to tear each other's hair out in fifteen minutes. Ayika was willing to take those odds.

Lili was still apprehensive as Ayika and Mizumi walked down with her and past the main hall to see her into the carriage that would carry her to the tram station. As the conveyance rolled away Ayika began to feel a twinge of fear despite herself. What if Lili's fears about traveling were not unreasonable? If not for her then perhaps others. Mizumi was clearly an Islander. Would it indeed be safe for her to walk across the Harbor Town with tensions the way they were? But when she tried to raise these concerns to Mizumi the other girl seemed almost amused.

"Oh, I agree. It would no do to be in a situation where we would be surrounded by large crowds. Fortunately, there are other roads around here. You should know that, Ayika."

...


	32. Lies

...

Xinfei leaned against a building corner across the street from the bustling Bridge of Fire and squinted in the bright sunlight. His bundle of matches was set at his feet and he held a sample box in his hand to wave at passers by. Here along the Kingdoms side of the Exclusion moat there were few buildings that showed anything other than blank brick and plaster walls facing this direction towards the foreign island of spires and gates. The shops that balked the trend were, in contrast to their squat and brooding neighbors, tall structures that punctured the solid native line and flung their contents open with blaring lights and large shutterless storefronts. These disloyal exceptions were doing a brisk business with the flurry of thing boats dancing across the water. However, on the road beside the moat Xinfei noticed that it seemed a large portion of the town's milling pedestrians were only waiting for something. Waiting just like him.

In the middle of a yawn, Xinfei's breath suddenly caught as he spotted an unfamiliar man moving towards him against the flow of traffic. The man might only be heading the wine-house a few buildings down or the exotic medicine merchant's beyond that but there was no harm in caution. The last week had proved right every paranoid instinct he had ever accumulated. Xinfei grabbed up his bundle of matchboxes and began to mill forward at an oblique angle in the opposite direction of the man's path. It would look like he was going to try selling to the boat merchants in the Exclusion moat. Come to think of it, he actually might try that. Then the man changed directions too, moving closer. That was more worrisome. Still he could easily slip into the crowd and...

"You, boy with the boxes!"

There was another man right behind him. Xinfei put on a dumb smile and faked being a speaker of some obscure country dialect as he backed up into the press of the traffic coming off the bridge. The two who had targeted him were still calling but Xinfei managed to scoot around a two wheeled cargo cart pulled by a shirtless hauler in a straw hat. Whoever these guys were they weren't going to catch a wharf rat like him down here in his own canals. In fact, he'd lost them all ready. He briefly stopped to take a breath and discern where his pursuers had gotten to only to; he discovered one of them right beside him. A hand landed on his shoulder.

Evasion having proved failure he tried a different tac. "Oh! Er, greetings mister!"

This earned him a shove back against the side of a passing foreign-style carriage. Back pressing into the vehicle's door, Xinfei wondered if he could drop down below the wheels and quickly roll over to the lip of the canal. He might be sick for a week after splashdown but even canal water was better than staying here where these men clearly wanted him to remain. Of course, at that exact moment something thumped him on the back of the head and then he was pulled backwards and up by a hand on his collar.

Xinfei looked up as he blinked on the carriage floor. The door had hit him when it opened outwards and now he was inside while Lili Gaoli in her green silk dress was looking down from her seat with curiosity and a modicum of concern. Xinfei gave her a rough simulation of a salute as from this position a bow would have been a sit-up. "Hey...you," he said. "Uh, um, Lili. Nice to meet you again."

Lili tilted her head politely. "Xinfei? Thank you for coming in. Ayika told me she thought you would be out here. Would you care to take a seat?" Xinfei, naturally suspicious, held silent for a moment as he considered this suspect courtesy. Lili raised an eyebrow and continued, "Perhaps a seat where it does not look like you're trying to peep up my dress?"

There was a lightning flurry of scrambling limbs and Xinfei was sitting in the carriage seat opposite Lili Gaoli, breathing heavily and trying to maintain his composure. Lili only smiled with worrying slyness and leaned out the open carriage door to where two very skeptical looking men were waiting. "Thank you, Mengre. We're all ready to be going again. I'll place my order with this urchin on our way to the terminal. You can hop back on up and tell the driver." Then she closed the door with a small click.

Xinfei fidgeted on the embroidered seat cushion in this luxurious cabin. He was starting to suspect that he had been kidnapped. Kidnapped by a thin, pretty, rich girl who was sitting across from him and smiling but kidnapped none the less. And Ayika had to be behind this somehow. There was no way a woman like this would have even remembered his name despite the crazy events of last night. He decided to test the theory of his captivity. He opened his mouth to speak and as was customary all his well-organized thoughts instantly became a jumble.

"Um, nice to see you Lili. You look, uh, well. But you see, there's a ship coming in soon and I need to get down to the water to help with the unloading so if I could just-"

Lili interrupted. She clasped her hands together in front of her in a jesture of pleading while her eyes still shouted command. Her skin was very smooth and pale. Xinfei remembered its feel from when he grabbed her hand in the headlong flight through the streets last night. She said, "No. Please, just stay for a moment. My father's making me leave Mizumi's and return to the house and that means I have absolutely no one with me who knows what we saw with benders and masks and witches fighting in the dark! All those crazy things!" Her eyes went wide as she realized how vulnerable she had sounded by the end and she sat back, shaking her hair slightly to regain composure. She breathed out. "I'm nervous, ok? You should be too. I'm not sure anyone who angered as many dangerous people as we did last night should be out on the streets alone."

"Um...ok." Xinfei said slowly and hesitantly. It was not like he really had any place to go that was not on the streets. He looked to the side and out through the tiny glass paned window set in the door. He was not entirely sure what this girl was getting at and everything about this situation was making him uncomfortable. Even the wood of this carriage felt expensive. "I do have to work the ship though. Down at the docks. Sort of soon."

Lili waved her hand and broke back into her normal rapid confidant chatter. "I wouldn't be so sure. You work for my father's company, right? Ayika said so? Last night he received word that all his operations were being suspended pending investigation on the harbor fire. Ugh, I know. Given the typical speed at which paperwork makes its way through the bureaucratic organs I would be very surprised if he'd gotten that waived yet. And that's even if the stupid conservatives haven't managed to play the attack on our house last night as a reason for an extension. Erliao at least should have enough other things to think about."

Xinfei blinked at this rapid onslaught of quick words. Lili said, "And anyway, I thought Ayika said you were out selling matches today?" Her eyes were curiously analytical and searching.

Xinfei couldn't help but give a dissatisfied grunt. "Yes to out, no to selling, despite my efforts." Amazingly, Lili did not seem primed to interrupt him. So he continued, "Ok, so I've focused on rebranding since people are getting mighty testy about Islander made products, but it isn't working. Haven't sold anything all day. Even if it's a long shot I have to go back and try and scrounge up a wage from Gaoli, er, your father." Wow, that was a weird thought. He was in a carriage with Gaoli's daughter. Alone in a carriage. His heart began to beat faster once more. Oh, he was very stupid. This was a very bad idea. She could literally say he did anything and he would be convicted instantly. You couldn't trust the inner rings people. He needed to get out of here.

Xinfei flinched at a sudden movement. Lili reached over a tugged one of the little matchboxes out of the tied bundle beside him as casually as if Xinfei had abruptly ceased to exist. She grabbed the box and with a practiced hand squeezed lightly to grab a lip before sliding the folded paper open. She then took a little stick from within and struck its painted head against a rough bit of decoration on the carriage wall. It flared and she flicked her wrist to extinguish it instantly. Then she waved the streaming line of smoke past her nose and sniffed. Another smooth motion shoved the spent match out a tiny hole in the vehicle door and she nodded in approval.

"Not nearly as sulfurous smelling as whatever brand the servants are using at the house right now. Whenever I move into a new room suddenly there is always that faint hint of eggs from them lighting the lamps." She looked at the little box again. "Oh, you just refolded the Islander packaging paper inside out. Clever. But my father has always said that cleverness and a good product are not enough, no matter how much it should be."

By now he had given up on understanding what was happening. "You're preaching, lady. These days if you're selling Islander stuff you're a traitor and if you don't then you're cheap. And no one knows enough to make up their minds for more than five minutes."

Lili twisted her mouth to the side in thought. She continued her monologue-like form of conversation. "Ayika and Mizumi are looking into that waterbender from last night, did you know? I wish I could have gone with them. Frankly, I'm sick of never knowing anything."

Xinfei had guessed that Mizumi must have been the one to provided Ayika an excuse to get out of work at the laundry but apparently Ayika didn't even feel the need to fetch him before they headed out on their investigations. That stung. Ayika had obviously known he was out here. Lili was looking at him with an unnervingly weighing expression. She seemed to be seeing something there that he himself was unaware of; something that she might have use for. Xinfei wasn't sure if he liked that or not.

Soon the carriage ground to a halt. The thought of bolting out and down the street briefly flashed into Xinfei's mind but there was a slight jostling as someone jumped down from the front of the carriage and then there was a hand at the door handle. Just as it began to open Lili was already in mid sentence.

"...will not do. No, I said before it was a goose-grey back with Yudao-fog stitching!" She looked to the side as if suddenly noticing that the door was open. "Mengre, this boy is impossible. He can not even understand a simple product order! And of course he can't read. I'm afraid I'll have to drag him along to continue this conversation on the tram if I don't have to shove him all the way to the house so the butler can show him a sample."

Mengre, a discomfortingly large man, gave Xinfei a very dark look. "I'm not sure that would be appropriate. Your father asked me-" Behind him Xinfei could see they were at the foot of the tram station.

"To bring me home safely," Lili finished, waving her hand in a dismissive manner as she continued in her best vapid chatter. "And you are doing so. Believe me I do not relish this option of continued proximity any more than you. But you see, while I was at the Miohuito residence I saw the most delightful Yai crafts-work products. And in such a variety! Patterns I've never been able to find. I've always wondered how the selection is perpetually picked over by the time it even first arrives in the Middle Ring, but Mizumi told me the trick. See, the best purchasers like the Miohuitos have people like this one who look through the shipments as soon as customs is done and put aside special orders before they ever arrive at the shops. But this boy can not understand the specifics of what I'm asking for! And I would write down what I want but, well, you can see how much help that would likely be." She pointed over at Xinfei as if he was a dog who could not understand a word being said. Even if this was all some sort of act Xinfei could not help feeling a bit of anger. Lili had far too much practice at it.

Mengre had the slightly glazed expression of someone trying to parse a very fast speech about the intricacies of a very uninteresting subject. Xinfei was sure that despite all Lili's efforts he was going to receive a clip to the head and be tossed into the street but Mengre grunted and nodded slightly in resigned acceptance. Arguing with Lili was the verbal equivalent of storming an entrenched army. Xinfei, lacking any choice here, followed Lili up the terminal stairs towards the tram-line while he in turn was followed by her two burly protectors. Lili was now explaining something very complicated about shoes and Xinfei felt like he had very little control over his life these days. In the middle of one long spoken paragraph Lili moved over a little closer as she gestured a sketch of something in the air.

She whispered at him, "Sorry about that back there. I needed some excuse to get you in the front car with me. Ladies can only display passion about a few things so fashion it was. No don't talk yet, not until they're in a separate compartment." Together they cresting up onto the tram platform where the conveyance was already loading passengers.

That came to pass soon enough once the two chaperones were stowed to the rear of the luxury transport car that Lili's golden passport opened up. However, there were still obstacles to free conversation. Namely that the Fire Nation Trade Representative Amantza Tailang was taking up half of the front tram car with his entourage.

It took Xinfei a moment to recognize the Representative as the last time he'd seen the man, back at Ayika's school, a recent beating from the city guards had seemed a great deal more important. Here the man was sitting on the far side of the car in his dark red formal robes with their strange flaring shoulders and stroking his pointed black beard as he appeared deep in thought. Lili jumped in surprise but quickly relapsed into her cover of attempting to describe to Xinfei the precise qualities of obscure products that he could supposedly obtain for her. Despite himself he found that the was actually listening carefully to her blather if only to prove to himself that he could figure out what she was actually talking about. He thought that this ruse would look better if he had some paper or a book to be making marks in but as it was all he could do was clutch his bundle of match boxes to his chest and nod submissively as Lili carried on.

"Aizhang Gaoli's daughter?"

The Fire Nation Emissary had recognized Lili. She jumped up from her seat and bent into as deep a bow as the compartment's narrow aisle would allow. "Honorable Trade Representative Tailang! It's good to see you. I would not dream of intruding on your important business."

Tailang gave a little clap of delight as he shook his head. "So mannered. Please, Miss Gaoli, there's no need for such ceremony here. This isn't one of your father's excellent dinner parties and I have already supped my fill of politics today. Some palette cleansing conversation would be lovely." The man was clearly a foreigner but his accent could have been straight out of one of the golden-blood Inner Ring families. He gave small hand-gesture waving off one of his clerks as he continued to address Lili. "I must say I'm surprised to see you out around the city so soon after last night's fearsome tragedy."

Lili held a hand in front of her mouth as she smiled shyly. Xinfei tried to resist raising an eyebrow. This was a far cry from the commanding girl who had nabbed him off the street. Her voice was soft and gentle. "I'm only returning home. Last night I fled to seek refuge at Tetzamatl Miohuito's house on invitation of his daughter, but my father has called me back."

She noticed Tailang looking at Xinfei with faint puzzlement as to why this warf-rat was in the Nobles' car. She quickly gave a dismissive flick of her hand and added, "Returning home and finishing up some fashion ordering. It's not often that I get to make a trip to the Harbor shops and they do frequently have a better offering than those picked over selections that make it to the Middle Ring." Lili stumbled slightly as the tram rumbled into operation. She quickly sat back down in the nearest seat while Xinfei tried to shrink into the decorated cabin wall behind him.

Tailang gave a polite chuckle as he rocked in his own seat. Presence explained, Xinfei's low-class form faded from his sight. "Oh, of course. I just spoke to Mister Miohuito and he told me of you and his daughter but I plain forgot. I'm afraid to say that the new curfew measures may cause a few more delays in restocking your Middle Ring shops. However, no sacrifice is to high to protect young flowers such as yourself from terrors like last night." He rubbed his brow. "Now if only I could be protected from bureaucrats and complainers. I have been riding this tram since first operation and I have been vexed at each end."

Lili leaned forward slightly with barely feigned casualness. "What peoples are giving you trouble? Vexed by Erliao and the other conservatives or by the King or the Fire Nation merchants or...?" There was the slightest hint of a space for a fourth party suggested. She was feeling out his knowledge of the Masks. Xinfei gulped at the abrupt boldness but he also couldn't help leaning forward a little too.

Tailang smiled wanly and gave no reaction to that bait. "Both the conservatives and my own honored Fire Sage Huitzlan, I'm afraid. At times I would prefer Erliao. The sub-minister at least doesn't blast holy fire around me as I sit in sweltering silence for an hour and a half of deification ceremonies for the late Naruhama."

He waves his hand. "Don't get me wrong, I loved the ambassador. He was a good man and a powerful firebender, but I was at his funeral even if we were all locked outside the door while Huitzlan burnt his body and mask. But how long can they drag these new city-god ceremonies on for? And all the while I have to listen to Huitzlan's sermons unsubtly expound on his wish for a return to the days of imperialism." Tailang's voice had a sour note as he spoke of the Fire Sage, though Xinfei thought that the Representative's problem was more with the priest's forthrightness than with the calls for conquest.

A thought occurred to the Representative and his voice grew more deliberate, "In fact, speaking of the man, did I not hear that Sub-minister Erliao helped you out last evening? Rescued you and Miss Miohuito off the street? Supposedly he'd just been visiting your father about the warehouse fire a few nights ago, is that correct? Or am I misremembering what I heard?"

Xinfei was sure that he should be able to hear Lili's heart beating from where he was sitting. Lili's play for information had backfired and Tailang was now curious about something involving their secret adventure.

But Lili's face betrayed nothing as she artfully shuddered in the performance of remembering mobs marching on the streets. "Ooh, it was terrible! Miohuito's daughter convinced me to flee to run towards the city guards but we got lost in the dark streets. And then Mister Erliao was there! Did you hear that story from the minister himself, sir? I only ask so that I might know he understands how grateful I am." That girl was inexhaustible, she was now pushing for information to determine if Erliao had mentioned the waterbender attack. The waterbender and whatever strangeness Ayika had been hinting at last night.

Tailang leaned back. "No I haven't seen Erliao yet, though I imagine it's only a matter of time. That poor man, quiet a few people are angry with him." His face held less sympathy than his words. "It was the murder of Chen Lizhen that finally began to convince the king's ministers. Erliao must have been so excited when the student nationalists suddenly became organized and effective but now he sees what his rhetoric and their enthusiasm has incited. Mobs in the street. There's a backlash brewing and in the face of his ruination poor Erliao seems to have now lost all patience for the subtitles of political negotiation. He continually talks about the Will of the People." Tailang gave a slight roll of his eyes. "What good is the support of the mob when the government is turning against you?"

"I see your point." Lili said politely, though Xinfei thought that she must have been thinking about the power of one particular mob that had lately been hammering on her houses gates. "So the nationalist movement is actually playing into your hands."

Tailang shook his head modestly while wearing the faintest suggestion of a wolflike grin. He seemed the sort who liked to brag whether he'd actually done it or not. "Oh, I wish I could claim anything so clever. No, I simply take advantage where I see it and try to solve problems." He quickly moved on to another topic, one with a subtler angle.

"Speaking of problems," he said. "I was distressed when I heard your father's import contract with Miohuito had been put on hold. Not only that, but someone has been spreading rumors about your father's warehouse having contraband technologies hidden in the walls? Perhaps someone misunderstood something they heard about the locomotive engines that were completely destroyed by a mistake in the Gaoli company's unloading process a few days prior. Miohuitao had mentioned that. People can be so deceptive with the truth."

Xinfei's mind jumped back to those Fire Nation branded machines he'd seen hidden behind Gaoli's secret wall the night of the wearhouse fire. Had the Islanders not know those things were there? The Masks sure had. What was Mister Gaoli up to? Was Mizumi's father in on it too?

However, Lili had not been at the warehouse that night. Tailang's sly hints now met a truly oblivious front. "Yes, my father is very worried about his business. He was just saying so to Mister Miohuito last night."

Tailang studied her face as he continued. "Ah, I suppose those rumors could just be wishful thinking. Some people here expect native industries to instantly catch up the development level of the Nation. There are always some who would prefer theft to honest partnership. Your father has the right of it by his continued commitment to trade over competition. Ambassador Naruhama always said that envy could be blinding. Or in the case of our dear Chao Erliao it can twist into self destructive anger."

Lili made one last push for information even as Xinfei silently pleaded for her to leave well enough alone. But she was right, a high level politician trapped on a tram and bored with no one but her to talk to was a chance that was not likely to present itself again. Especially an unmarried man who might be extra willing to talk to a pretty seventeen year old girl. It seemed all the rich were trained in this sort of thing. She made a show of glancing around, although the other Nobles' Car passengers were all already watching this conversation while pretending not to. She theatrically raised her hand to her mouth for a piece of gossip.

"Speaking of self destruction, I've recently heard the twitterings of a rumor about the sub-minister. Whispers of his involvement in something...well I am not sure what but the shape of it is...contrary to the station of his elevated office." That might have been vague enough hint about the attack from the waterbender last night to bait the hook. Most would consider a murder accusation contrary to the official description of a government minister, though Xinfei himself bitterly saw it the other way. As if to provide Lili with greater atmosphere, at that moment the outside illumination plunged into dimness as the tram passed into its tunnel through the city wall.

"My, you strike swiftly." Tailang said as his face reemerged from the shadows on the other side, lit with mock surprise.

He laughed. "I believe it was your poet Luzi Tang who said, 'like silken knives, women whisper in gardens'. I believe I've heard the same talk about the dear Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression. But though Erliao is an adversary to both of us it's still wise to go slowly. There are some who tried to make something of his past friendship with Chen Lizhen back when the professor fell out of favor but nothing came of that at the time. Erliao is an...interesting man. Now with the death of Lizhen there's only one who can confirm those other lurking stories. And it seems that Erliao has quite forgotten that one loose thread." His face was quite and composed but his eyes twinkles with eager malice suggesting that despite his assurances he did hold some trump card. One he planned to use to great effect against Minister Erliao.

Lili was hurriedly trying to think of some way to prolong this mysterious conversation but thankfully here Tailang sighed and glanced over as his assistant who had now for several minutes been clearing his throat and indicating to a document he wanted the Representative to read.

"I am sorry, Miss Gaoli, but I must now beg my leave from this lovely discussion." Here he stopped and held up a hand. "Ah, a thought occurs to me. Have I remembered to forward an invitation to your father for the theater performance taking place after the Festival of Autumn Veils? It's possible it entirely slipped my mind. It's at the Silver Snake playhouse. That's in Kuang Harbor, I know," he said apologetically. "...but the company is from the former colonies, excuse me, the United Republic in our modern speech, and of course foreign actor companies are not permitted within the city proper."

Lili said, "I'm not sure if such an invitation was received, sir. I will certainly extend these courtesies to my father."

Tailang smiled. "Thank you. I will write anyway but do encourage him to come if you can. I've heard the performer's costumes and masks in particular are exquisite. They have supposedly combined styles from the Earth Kingdom with traditions from the eastern Islands of the Nation. I have always considered myself a student of masked theater and this should be a special treat. When I was a boy I even made a fool of myself by performing some small pieces with my sisters. I was particularly good at affecting accents. I could speak like the citizen of any nation." Despite the subtle self effacement there was an undercurrent of confident pride in the Trade Representative's voice.

Lili gave every sign of enthusiasm and admiration. "Well, I will greatly enjoy any performance if there is the chance of a commentary by such a knowledgeable expert. Hopefully, I'll see you there. If you will excuse me now I wish to see if I can finish instructing this boy on my errand so I do not have to take him all the way back to the house."

Tailang generously gave his consent and Lili moved over across the aisle to rejoin Xinfei. When he tried to say something to her she quietly shushed him. For several minutes they rode in silence as the other riders gradually lost interest in the young woman who had been talking with the high ranking Islander.

Once the Trade Representative was again wrapped up in political considerations with his assistants Lili spoke softly. "Well, that was interesting wasn't it? Did you hear how quickly he brushed of the question of who was behind the riots last night? There was not one mention of the masked nationalists. Now the city government could be hiding those details from him or..." Her tone was thick with possibility. Now she looked out the tram window. "Shoot, we'll be reaching the Middle Ring soon."

Xinfei was confused. "And why's that bad? That's where you're going, right?" His mind was still back trying to piece together everything the Islander had said.

Lili caught sight of the approaching ring-wall and flinched slightly. If Xinfei had not been sitting right in the adjacent seat he wouldn't have spotted so small a motion. Lili spoke softly. "People attacked my house last night, people under orders. People with power. I'm going home but I am not going to feel safe until whoever behind that is caught. And that Representative Tailang...I need to write a letter to Mizumi. I have an idea."

Xinfei was too caught up in his own thoughts to hear the sad note in her voice. "He mentioned that play. Tailang did. Something about actors from the Liberated Territories. I think Mizumi said that the Masks reminded her of Islander theater props. The Masks are attacking Islander supporters...but they're not attacking Islanders. You know, frankly I'd given up on thinking about Mister Miohuito being involved in all this and was just needling Ayika about it but what if I was on the right track and it was someone else on his side?"

Lili was looking at him. She had not heard his mumbled thought-process. "Would you take it to her?"

That was the moment that the tram rumbled into the darkness of the Middle Ring tunnel. When they burst back into daylight on the far side of the wall Xinfei shook himself back down to the correct plane of existence. "Take what? Oh, your letter to Mizumi. Yeah, sure I'll take it." He stopped. "But, wait. Why not just zip down tomorrow and talk to her? I'm sure you'll at least hear about her and Ayika's adventure today which is more than I'm like to be told."

Lili glowered slightly, as if she half suspected he was mocking her. "Do you really think I'll be let out of the house again after running off last night? And I am not allowed to invite any ladies to visit without father's permission, which is far from certain since it sounds like he's starting to quarrel with Miohuito and the other Islanders according to whatever it was Tailang was hinting at. More cursed smuggling suspicion. Why did you think I was so keen to have a companion on this trip back? No, I'm to be locked in for a long while. I need someone to be my lifeline to the world."

Xinfei found himself looking at this rich girl again. Her skin was pale like new milk in brilliant contrast to her raven black hair. He knew that pallor was achieved by staying indoors instead of working out of the sun but for the first time it occurred to him that such a complexion might not be had entirely by choice. Lili Gaoli was still the spoiled daughter of an exploiting merchant and had never had a hard day of her life, but though her life was far far better than most there could still be a few bad parts.

He said, "Yeah, sure I'll take the letter, though Mizumi can just use the post to reply back. At least I'm pretty sure Islanders can use the post."

Lili shook away her gloom and came back to her chipper, peppy self. "That won't do. I am fairly sure my mother reads any mail I receive. You'll have to deliver it by hand. You know what I'll do? I'll give you a purse and we will actually act out the excuse I gave Mengre. You take the money and buy... oh I don't know, really any selection of fabrics or other goods and bring them to the trade entrance along with Mizumi's reply. Then I will just say I changed my mind on what I wanted and we can repeat the whole thing. Mother ends up doing things like that all the time and Father never says any more than a slight grumble at the expense."

Xinfei bristled at what he saw as presumption of further command over his time. "Hey, I agreed to help you, not become your personal delivery boy. Some of us actually have to make a living." He'd just barely worked himself out of the hole he had entered buying the matches in the first place.

"Well, my father's import license is temporarily suspended for the arson investigation so you would be out of work at the docks anyway. And you would not be doing it for nothing."

"I don't need your charity either. I've never looked for handouts." His family had gotten enough of them without looking. Xinfei's father had never taken handouts when he was alive and no son of his would owe his survival to them once again.

Lili arched one delicate eyebrow like a deft stroke of calligraphy. "Charity? I thought it was obvious what I intended. Ayika said your were a very mercantile fellow. Always selling something? Well, you buy whatever merchandise you want with my money and when I turn you away at the door you go sell them for a profit. If you really feel the need you can pay me back the base cost once the products are sold. There, now it's an investment, not charity and I still can receive my communications unmolested." Her head then twisted to the side like the motion of a bird as she looked out the window. "Oh, we're almost at the station!"

Xinfei was left with his mouth slightly agape as his mind whirred with the new realm of calculations Lili had just opened up for him. He had a financier. Hundreds of plans that had died in the conception stage were now branching out into the future before his eyes. An interest-free loan. Many had risen to greatness with less. The things he could do. This would mean he might not be able to watch over Ayika till things cooled like he'd hoped. But she had made it pretty clear today she didn't want him joining in in her adventures with Mizumi. Or maybe she just hadn't noticed him following her until she was already being taken across the Exclusion bridge. He had been pretty stealthy.

He quickly stole a look over at Lili beside him. Or maybe he was looking at it the wrong way. Ayika had trusted him with her sheltered new friend, or Mizumi's friend or however that worked out. That did sound more like the Ayika he had known all his life. Lili's face was still serene but her finger nervously tapped against the side of her thigh. Xinfei's thoughts hardened. No one could safely plan business in this city if masked men were raising mobs against anyone who got money from down the river. They were killing people. His father wouldn't have allowed this to go on. Xinfei silently pressed his teeth together. He had long ago sworn he would not make the same mistakes as his father; fall into the trap of other people's problems. The corner of his mouth twitched up. But blood will tell. Those Masks would come to know why the name Bao was remembered in Kuang Harbor.

...


	33. Shaman

...

The water taxi that pulled up to the steps down the moat-bank behind Mizumi's mansion was of the normal sort that patrolled the Kuang Harbor canals servicing those with coin to pay. It was five meters long with a square nose and tail that signaled a narrow flat bottom made for maneuvering in the crowded artificial waterways. The boat's center was occupied by a little wooden canopy with empty bamboo-framed windows under a reed-mat roof to shield passengers from the sun or rain. The pilot stood in the rear leaning against his single oar that served as both rudder and propulsion as he waited for the rich foreign girl and the one who must be her servant to gather their nerve and get on. Ayika casually walked aboard the slowly bobbing deck as easily as she might on a stone street. Though she had rarely afforded to charter such a boat she was no stranger to occasionally taking a shortcut directly across a well-packed canal to the irritated cries of boatmen who did not approve of random girls treading over their moving vessels. Mizumi touched her foot to the planks much more cautiously.

Ayika quickly spoke to the boatman, laying out their destination on Flowing Water Street up near the city wall. She'd heard Mama Mua the fortuneteller lived there. Mama Mua the waterbender. As Mizumi settled herself onto a hard wooden seat beside Ayika, the pilot began to gently but forcefully sway his oar from side to side, slowly guiding them away from the Exclusion and out over the dark green water of the moat. Mizumi was so excited to glimpse the ordinary traffic of the waterways from this new angle that Ayika began to catch some of her enthusiasm. They exited the Exclusion moat and made their way up another canal towards the distant but looming city wall. The sound of water lapping a few handbreadths away managed to sound peaceful despite the occasional loud and grating yells from their driver to other boats or shoreside persons.

Their pilot was using the canal-man dialect for these communications which was difficult enough for most citizens to understand let alone a newly-arrived Islander. However, on a matter of principle when his language turned particularly foul Ayika shot him a very knowing look of comprehension that caused his lips to suddenly glue together. Mizumi was still speaking excitedly about some shrine she had glimpsed down a branching waterway and might not have noticed the exchange at all. Ayika turned back in her seat on the plank with satisfaction on her face as they glided on. She had not felt so relaxed in a long time.

They were peaceably sitting side by side on their narrow seats when Mizumi leaned over suddenly. Her head was now almost resting on Ayika's shoulder and Ayika was not at all sure how she was supposed to react to that kind of personal contact. Fire Nation girls did seem to like to touch a lot. Mizumi whispered, "There is something you are not telling me."

Ayika's heart was pounding as she struggled and failed to vocalize some stammering protestation of innocence from that sudden blanket accusation while she franticly thought of whatever Mizumi might be referring to. Mizumi did not wait for that verbal roadblock to clear. "There was something more last night about the waterbender and the attack on Erliao. Something you did not tell everyone. It has something to do with the auras around the mask wearers you mentioned to Ma'er, does it not? Being attacked in the fog made most of the others forget what you had said to him. Colored shadows? When Lili was discussing the waterbender you had the same guarded look as you did then. A look of something not said."

In truth Ayika knew she ought to tell Mizumi about what she had seen: spirits in the fog. But no one else had perceived them. The thought of her new friend looking at her like she was going mad was an image that she jerked away from like a hand from scalding metal. She shook her head. "That mist was everywhere, and the bender was twisting it into all sorts of shapes. I thought I saw something but... It might've been nothing. We can ask Mama Mua, if it turns out she's the one we're looking for."

Mizumi seemed willing to accept that answer for now. She leaned back a bit and felt at her injured arm as she winced. They had not escaped from the fog unscathed. "What makes you think she will speak to us? Last night she attacked us!"

"I promise you, we'll have something to talk about. I think I...we know something she'll want to hear about. Maybe more than one." As Ayika said it she knew it to be true. There has been one other person who had seen the spirits in the mist. Someone who had been vey surprised by Ayika's presence. Someone who might be able to answer her questions about spirits and masks and murderers. Professor Lizhen had held onto her picture for a reason. Ayika guessed the mysterious water tribe woman who could command the spirits would be interested in another woman who apparently could do the same.

...

The boat made a slow pivoting turn as the boatman dug his oar deep into the dark water and the long nose now faced into a side channel that angled towards the cliff of the great wall. He had to work a little harder up in this part of the town, for though at a casual glance the water seemed just as still Ayika knew those subtle ripples betrayed a gentle current below the surface. They were near the city wall and thus near where the canal water emerged from its underground pipes that brought it down from the Lower Ring. At the origin pools the opaque liquid bubbled as it roiled upwards, filled with energy from its dark confinement and ready to give Flowing Water Street its name.

This bit of the harbor town was far from both the river and the Craftsman's gate, spread out along the edge of the wall as a creeping extension of another more planned neighborhood. The buildings here were at once newer and more dilapidated. Whatever had stood here before the war had been destroyed by neglect when the harbor's population had shrunk and these new dwellings had been hurriedly constructed from old bricks when the returning tide of trade revitalized the town. The reuse of cracked brick fragments and weathered wood reminded Ayika of the Bed though the faces she saw were all those of Kingdoms natives rather than immigrants.

There was a faint tap as a duck floated down the current and bumped its plated shell against the hull. It quacked softly as a breath of breeze swept down to ruffle the water. There was another thing in this neighborhood that reminded Ayika of home. There were spirit charms hanging from the eaves of every house. From behind her the boatman said that they were coming up on their destination. The canal boat slid to a stop by a set of ancient stone stairs spotted with well-trod grass growing from the cracks. On either side of the little landing, household laundry hung off the buildings that leaned out into the path of passing boats. Mizumi paid the boat-man while only giving the most subtle of glances to Ayika to confirm that she was handing over an appropriate sum. Then the two of them climbed up to the street.

This near the city wall the world only existed in three directions. To the south the blue sky stretched down to the town's tiled roofs while to the north, though the buildings were of of equal height, but they seemed hunched down. Those constructs had no choice but to abase themselves before the towering heights of the magic-made mountain range that was the City Wall behind them.

Up the street from the boat landing, Ayika saw a small square. In the middle of that brick paved space was an old and gnarled oak tree growing out of a sunken stone enclosure. The plant was of unusual size and age for a city as wood-starved as Ba Sing Se. Ayika had never been to this neighborhood before but she instantly know locals referred to it as The Tree, bestowing on it arboreal kingship over all its distant fellows who were to those town-dwellers purely theoretical.

This area was not rich. Those who lived here were for the most part those who had risen far enough to leave their farming villages out in the encircled land but who had not been able to save up enough to purchase city citizenship. They were a proud and solid people who might not own more than three sets of clothes but who had the earth in their bones. There was not one household here who could not claim at least one earthbender in the distant reaches of their well-documented ancestry. Well, all except for Mama Mua.

Amid this self assured shabbiness of cracking plaster and chipped tiles hers was the one building that stood out. It sat at the edge of the square behind The Tree and seemed designed to offend the unthinking structures around it. The beams that projected from its eaves were carved in scalloped waves and the walls were painted with undulating waves of blue and white and pale purple. From every corner and along the roofline hung wooden idols, their presence advertising the magical services provided inside. Ayika, being familiar with those who had immigrated from the Northern Water Tribes, recognized some of what she saw but there was a pervasive strangeness to this manifestation from one of a cousin tribe. It was her family's culture nurtured and raised in a distant land, hot and humid instead of chill and icy. A place where one might learn to command the water in the air as warriors of the north molded ice and sea. Ayika and Mizumi shared a look as they stood in front of this building for a moment before they pushed aside a hanging curtain and walked together through the open front door.

It was dim inside the fortuneteller's house and the air was thick. Part of that humidity must have come from the four large pots of water that sat in each corner of the room, their contents colored black as ink by the lacking light. There were no windows to be seen. A large number of wooden talismans hung from the rafters and faintly clacked with every breath of shifting air like a colony of carved bats. In the center of the room there was a low fire in a raised brick fire-pit, burned down to the point that it was mostly coals glowing to darkly illuminate the room that seemed be the entire building. It appeared untended but Ayika noted a few scattered leaves quickly crinkling away to blue and sweet smelling smoke. Those must have been added a few moments ago. Someone had seen them coming. There were four low stools sat around the fireplace but Ayika and Mizumi remained standing.

Mizumi moved in very close and took hold of Ayika's upper arm in a protective gesture. She whispered, "I am starting to have more doubts about our coming here. Maybe-" Whatever Mizumi thought Ayika would not get to hear because there was sudden motion at the back of the room.

A camouflaged curtain of hanging cloth strips suddenly parted to reveal a doorway and a stooped female figure. The fortuneteller Mama Mua was dressed in black robes decorated with stripes of blue and white with hints of pale pink thread. Around her neck hung the strap for a small leather drum like a pendant below her chest and there were tiny silver disks sewed across her lower shoulders. Most striking was her headwear which seemed to be a large square headboard wrapped and hidden under a cloth of a deep color between purple and red. Along the edges hung a fringe of beads and and tiny bits of tinkling metal which half shielded the piercing depths of the woman's eyes like a swaying curtain. Yet despite the costume and artifice one look was all it took for Ayika to confirm that this was their waterbender. She remembered those eyes shining out of the fog in fury and confusion.

Mizumi subtly shifted her feet across the floor-stones. Somehow she was now more planted and without moving had managed to project her body in front of Ayika. Ayika felt a surge of affection for the gesture but all she could think of was the fact that this waterbender could cut them both down in seconds. Suddenly the weight of the trust Mizumi had placed on her assessment of this unknown woman pressed on her heart. But she was right. She had to be.

The fortuneteller raised her hands. A powerful and sonorous voice intoned, "Greetings young ladies. It is auspicious that you came to Mama Mua on this day which..." She stopped suddenly. "Oh, for frickin'...! Well, that sure didn't take long. I guess ya found me." All at once the dramatic posturing collapsed into a casual and heavily accented speech that would hot have been amiss at the fish market. The fortune teller stood up straight and revealed herself to be both much taller and much younger than her stooped posture had suggested.

Mama Mua had recognized the two girls. With an exasperated sigh she ushered them to sit down, giving a casual hand gesture as she flopped down onto her own stool with considerably less ceremony than one expected from a fortuneteller in full regalia. Ayika was taken aback. The woman called Mua produced a little leather wrapped flask from somewhere in her robes and she took a quick swig as her guests stumbled against this abrupt change in formality. Ayika recovered fairly quickly and took a seat where she could look directly across the fire-pit into the other woman's eyes. Mizumi kept to Ayika's side and chose another of the four stools, though the Islander clearly did not enjoy that this seat was right beside Mua herself. Mizumi leaned ever so slightly towards Ayika as she sat down.

Mama Mua smacked her lips in a manner better suited a woman much older than her three decades or so, and then bottle vanished again. "So," she said. "Neither of ya know me and Ah know it wasn't the Fire Nation chit who found me." She met Ayika's stare with interest paid. "I suppose ya took your sweet time in comin here too." The woman's accent drifted in and out with the characteristic of someone who had once tried to learn to disguise it but had since given up the effort. Her eyes were sharp and suspicious.

Ayika knew she had to be cautious here. All they knew about this woman was that she was dangerous and had accused Sub-Minister Erliao of murder. And she knew about the spirits. But Ayika was willing to explain enough to answer the unvoiced question of how the two of them had found this place. "It was a matter of local knowledge. From what we saw last night there weren't too many who fit your profile. A woman bender of the tribes who could've been trained in combat and lived near enough to have known people in this slice of the city. I live here in the town. I'd heard your name before down around, waterbender and fortuneteller, so it was simple to put together."

Mua's brow furrowed a bit more and she gave a snort. "Took ya all of five minutes Ah bet. And Chao Erliao 'll be tearing up half the city lookin for where Ah ended up. I doubt he knows how many unregistered people there are here." She had her face twisted into a humorous and ugly expression but Ayika could see that she was beautiful despite her efforts. The woman's skin was smooth and did not hold the wrinkles that she forced in with those grimaces.

Mizumi leaned forward, hesitant but curious. "Minister Erliao. That is actually who we want to talk about, and about your...encounter...this previous evening."

"What of it? Ya cost me mah chance to catch hold of that bastard. He's hardly ever out of the Inner Ring and even less is out away from public and guards. Who knows when I'll get a chance again? And what's Chao's safety to ya? I know he's not your friend, Fire Nation. Perhaps he was yours, girl in the whore's outfit. Customer?" Mua responded to Mizumi but her gaze never left Ayika and her outrage was more baiting than genuine. She seemed on edge, expecting Ayika to do something at any moment. There was a level of apprehension that was not appropriate from someone who had carved up three men with blades of vapor.

Ayika had heard enough comments about her outfit for one day. Mizumi was ready to burst out with some angry exclamation but Ayika interrupted to say, "I work counter for a laundry. And we're not here for Erliao. We're here for Lizhen." She watched Mua's surprise flicker with a widening of the irises. Ayika gestured her head to Mizumi at her side, "She was a student at his school. Where I worked. Where he was killed." Mua gave a soft sharp inhalation. Ayika was scoring hits so she might as well press the advantage for information. There was some deeper story here. "He had your picture in his office, you know."

From Mizumi's perspective there was no reaction, but Ayika caught sight of the tightening tendons in the waterbender's hands. Mua would have shown the same response to slap across the face. But she made no retort and instead casually straightened up on her short stool. "Student of Chen? Then ya know that he was murdered. What explanation do ya want of me? Ya heard me last night. I discerned who the killer was and Ah confronted him. Chao Erliao escaped, but trust me soon I'll do my part to... simplify your politics, fire girl. His crime will be secret no longer." She mimicked Ayika's side head motion to direct her speech at Mizumi while still looking forward across the fire. "I take it you've not got Chao stuffed in a sack on ya, so why come here to hear what ya could've figured out for yourself?"

Mizumi was ready to continue but Ayika raised her hand at her to hold off. She took a breath. "That's not the only question I'm asking about that night."

A venomous smile began to creep across Mua's lips. "Oh, isn't it? What else 'bout last night do ya want too know?"

Ayika would have to approach this topic carefully. "There were many more... persons out in that fog than I expected. Than I expected to see."

Mua raised a single eyebrow knowingly. "And there was certainly at least one more than Ah expected. Where did this she come from?" She was not going to give anything away before her own questions were answered.

Ayika took a long pause before saying, "I saw what you did."

Mua let her own pause drag on a few moments longer. "As I saw you."

Ayika took a breath. "I saw your friends."

Mua narrowed her eyes. "And I yours."

Both Water Tribe women were startled by a sudden yell. "That is enough!" The two looked over with equal confusion at Mizumi who had slammed her hands down forcefully on her knees and was glaring at them both.

"Ayika, you have been mysterious about something since last night! I have not pressed you much because I trust you. But now you two are playing some sort of game where you both refuse to say what it is obvious you both know. And it is infuriating! You might as well be two mistresses who have both slept with the same married man! One of you spit it out or waterbender lady kill us both right now because I am sick of all this ridiculous posturing!" With that she slapped her palms on her knees again and sat with her ramrod straight posture as she alternated her glare between them.

There was dead silence save for the faint clacking of the spirit charms hanging in the rafters and Mizumi's elevated breathing. The low-burning fire let out a single pop. Then Mama Mua laughed and its sound was sweet and youthful. "There's that Fire Nation directness! That's why Chen loved your people so much. Well, laundry girl, Ah think we must do as she says." The little flask appeared in her hand again and Mua casually leaned an elbow on her knee. "I'll tell ya what Ah saw last night. You've got the talent for a shaman. Ya can see the hidden Spirits. And they see you."

Mizumi gasped. Whatever she had expected the secret to be, it was not that. For Ayika it was a confirmation that she had not gone crazy; that she had in fact seen something true. That one question answered she was suddenly filled with ten thousand more. "I knew it! How did you call the Spirits last night? They were obeying you! Why did no one else see them? Are the Masks using this same sort of power? That explains why the others weren't seeing the colored auras. Somehow they're binding spirit energy to their masks, that must be it!" Thoughts were racing to link together in her mind and she felt a tremor in her hands as her veins flushed with exhilaration.

Mua now put on a face of confusion behind the swaying curtain of beads hanging from her headdress. "Masks? What are you talking about?"

Ayika was not in the mood for more dissembling. She was finally close to getting answers for what was tearing this city apart. So she snapped, "Don't lie. The Initiated. The leaders of the nationalists. You know, the ones who were tearing up lampposts and killing earthbenders with their bare hands in the middle ring last night while you did your fog trick! The ones who killed Lizhen! They put on masks and gain power and skill. It has to be related to you doing your spirit stuff! Because they also had a quality around them, like a hazy shadow that clung to their heads and hands and feet and no one else seemed to see that either even though it was giving them power! Those colors have something to do with spirits if only I could see them. And why are their fighters getting stronger each day?"

Mama Mua sat up, her leather-wrapped flask forgotten on its way back to her mouth. The woman's eyes blinked slowly. Ayika started to think that she had overestimated how much the fortune teller knew about this whole situation. Mua stared for a long moment before slowly screwed the flask top back on. "Maybe we should start from the beginning. With introductions. I am Nia Mua, and you two are much more interesting than Ah expected ya to be."

...


	34. Gods

...

Ayika was rather shaken from having just accidentally revealed all their information on the Masks to someone who apparently had never even heard of them. But Mua had commanded spirits and called her Shaman. Ayika had to know what this meant.

"Ayika. Of the Northern Water tribe."

"Northerner. I never would've guessed," Mua said sarcastically as she raised an eyebrow at the scandalous counter-girl uniform and its fake fur trim.

Before Ayika could shoot back, Mizumi interjected with her own agitatedly formal speech, "And I am Mizumi Miohuito, born of Kasai Island, the Fire Nation, now resident of the Kuang Harbor encircled district of Ba Sing Se in the Earth Kingdom. It is very nice to meet you. Now can we go back to what was said before? Spirits?!" Mizumi was doing an admirably good job of maintaining composure but she was looking at the two other women like they had both lost their minds.

Mua took a taste of her flask, having now remembered its existence after her previous surprise. "Your friend here can see the hidden, girl. Not many can. In mah home we called those who do ilbuhu. Shaman. Here Ah don't know what they call them. I only ever met one kingdomer who knew his stuff and still Chen wasn't what ya'd call a practitioner. If they have them at all the local sort must know tricks Ah don't to get the spirit folk to listen on any sort of consistent basis or else most all be frauds." She made a hand gesture to indicate that she thought the latter was much more likely.

At hearing the word shaman again Ayika could not help gasp a little. A sense of dread and exhilaration was growing in her stomach. She had heard other immigrants say that when they had visited her home in the past. "Grandma Aka."

Mua's eyebrow raised. "Now there's a name I've heard. Aka of the Bed. They call her witch too."

"She died."

"Everyone does."

Ayika shook her head slowly as she tried to absorb everything this woman was telling her. She had some innate talent to see spirits? No on else had seen them last night. Could she have always been able to do this? Then she wrinkled her brow. No, that didn't make sense.

"No. Grandma talked about spirits, yeah, but I saw her conducting ceremonies all the time and before this week I never saw or felt a single thing. What changed?" Grandma Aka's work around the Bed had always seemed very abstract, more to do with convincing people how to think about themselves than actually manipulating any supra-human power. Ayika was not always sure the woman had believed in the spirits at all. Aka had seemed more interested in the story than the ritual.

Mua shrugged. "Truth is Ah wouldn't count not seein against ya. This city's bad land for spirits. Till a few days ago Ah had to work mah blood out to make the strongest of them show as more than a ripple in the air. But even then it takes a special push for a human to see a spirit that doesn't wish to be seen. No, your grandmother's inheritance gave ya the potential, but she didn't help ya open it. Didn't make you a shaman. Ya must've done that on your own."

Mizumi spoke up, wrinkling her brow as she tried to quickly manage a vast shift in her view of the world. This confrontation had spiraled out of her expectations from the moment she had stepped inside the building. She looked to Ayika to make sense off all this. "But what happened? Why are you see... whatever it is you are seeing? You just said that you never saw spirits before. When did something change?"

Suddenly Ayika knew the answer. Her voice was soft and wisp-like, almost involuntary. She had witnessed something. A hundred innocuous things her grandmother had said were recalled to her. Grandma Aka talking of portentous occasions and weakening walls. Of the one most powerful moment in anyone's life: the very end. "The night I saw Lizhen die." Suddenly in her mind she was back in that dark office before the man in the white mask.

Mama Mua's breath caught in a silent gasp. Her head rocked back and the beads and silver bangles dangling from her headdress swished like distant curtains of rain. For that moment she wasn't the bitter, mysterious shaman; she was just a woman who had heard something that shook her. She slowly found her words. "You saw him..."

Mizumi now sat straight on her stool, glaring at Mua as if daring her to say anything more to Ayika while she was so vulnerable. If the space had easily allowed it Mizumi might have rushed to Ayika's side. Instead she said to Mua, "She came into his office that night. The killer struck her down and fled. She tried to help Teacher Lizhen, managed to put out the fire that the killer had started to burn all evidence of their crime. Since that day she has been trying to find the identity of that attacker so that he might be brought to justice! She alone as I can see in this city government."

Mua leaned forward with desperate intensity. Ayika felt the urge to flinch away from her fierce and hungry eyes. "You saw the murder? You know his face?"

Ayika sighed, "No, he was wearing a mask. He was one of them, with their power; must be spirit world power. But there are so many of them! Those Masks. And no one knows who leads them!" She caught her breath. She had gotten ahead of herself. She had come here for information and found herself the one giving it away. "Except that you said you knew it was Erliao. What do you know? Is he one of the Masks? He sounded confused when... when he heard you." Ayika agreed with what Mizumi had said back at the mansion, the minister's confusion did not seem like the reaction of a guilty man. And there was something more going on here between Mama Mua and Erliao.

Mua waved her hand dismissing Ayika's analysis of Erliao's reaction. "I consulted the powers, and his fate in tightly wound with that bloody night. And Chao Erliao has held hatred of Chen Lizhen for years."

Mizumi said, "Hatred? Why? I have heard that they used to be good friends. No one has explained how that transformed into them being enemies. And could we get back to the spirits for a moment! Ayika, you are saying that those masks are using spirit power!?" The disorganization of this conversation was obviously causing her great annoyance.

Mua wrinkled her mouth at Mizumi and ignored the second half of her inquiries.. "Chen's life is sealed. All that's left's justice which Ah will provide and peace which will be long in comin." She turned to Ayika and her voice dropped. "Somethin's very wrong in this city. Have ya felt it girl? It comes and goes, always growin in strength, and where it grows the barrier to the spirit world wears thin. A heat behind the world, growin in power every day. Someone out there's causin it. I've taken advantage; learned to use it do shaman work I never could before, like you saw last night. But Ah fear others do far more. If my paltry spirit allies are willing to act openly against humans like they did last night then a danger's comin the like of which this land hasn't seen in an age."

Ayika thought to herself. She remembered the night the man in the white mask had burst into her life. "And the flames dance on their wicks. In the office and at the Harbor fire." That had been the sign that had heralded Lizhen's assassin. For hours before that arrival the fires in the school had behaved oddly. She'd then seen the same thing at Gaoli's warehouse when the earthbender Ma'er attacked the Masks. That had to be a clue. But then she thought of the torches last night on the Fifth Hill. There hadn't been any of that flickering there. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn't? Like it was hiding.

Mua frowned, "Flames? I haven't seen what ya speak of. But if ya can see the hidden and make them hear your voice then ya must've felt what's goin on. The spiritual balance is upset. It feels like some great power's moving around just outside mah vision. The spirits are growing closer, Ah fear that soon the ghosts may walk free. You know a disrupting day's coming. Their day."

Mizumi broke into the conversation. "Walk free? An Important day coming? Like a holiday for spirits? Wait, are you simply talking about the Autumn Festival of Veils? That is the occasion when the kingdomers dress up in disguises as some sort of celebration of the harvest. They are not really spirits, you know. It is just people wearing costumes."

Mua's expression could have scratched stone. Clearly she did not think Mizumi had much right to be speaking here. "No. I'm not. That festival only pushes up the time table." Mizumi threw up her hands in frustration at this cryptic answer. "But as it gives risk it also provides opportunity. I will find Erliao and I will give Chen justice."

Ayika was quiet, almost talking to herself. "Something's weakening the line between worlds, you said. And it's making the masks stronger. Ma'er confirmed that was happening. It must be the same thing. You said Erliao killed Lizhen. As in he's behind all this. You think Erliao's disrupting the spirit world somehow?

"Chao Erliao has the spiritual talent of a floating log," Mua spat. But then she rolled her shoulders. "But he's never been shy of hiring of others. Nowadays men knowledgeable of the spirits are dying all over. Naruhama, Chen, maybe others. Erliao was still a friend of Chen when he was doing his research with the Ambassador and that Fire Sage Huitzlan. Chen liked those visits to the Exclusion, before he got all ideological. He spent many hours with the Ambassador Naruhama tryin to talk politics while Chen talked tradition. But Erliao couldn't keep the thoughts away from his stupid nation pride. Always talkin with Naruhama and whoever the other one hangin around was, got a promotion later, that Tailang fellow."

Some thought struck Mizumi. "Wait a little. Teacher Lizhen spent lots of time learning things about spirits from Ambassador Naruhama? In the presence of Trade Representative Tailang? What were they discussing and how do you know this?"

Mua shook her head. "That was years ago, another lifetime. A time when that vile Chao Erliao dared to be Chen's friend." Her eyes regained their fire. "Now all that matters now is telling me where to find Erliao! You cost me mah best chance of grabbing him, girl. Even with the veil weakening I'll not be to marshal such allies again!"

Mizumi was skeptical. "You have still not answered why you think Minister Erliao ordered Teacher Lizhen's killing. What is he to you?"

Mua looked at her with lip curling condescension. "When a crime's done look to friends and family first, then look for who else benefits. Chen Lizhen is Erliao's greatest critic, and once a so called friend. The Ambassador's death left a mess with the reformers and the city government as well. Someone's taken advantage of it. It's obvious who. It's obvious who'll gain. Ayika, tell me how you found Erliao like that last night!"

"No, it is not obvious." Mizumi said, stubbornly sticking to her position. "Lizhen's death can only slightly be said to benefit Minister Erliao. Such a brazen act of violence has driven many of the ruling ministers to side with Representative Tailang. In fact those Student Nationalists have always targeted Erliao's enemies but in a way which does not necessarily benefit him and instead..." Here she trailed off as she seemed to take a moment to listen to her own words.

Ayika opened her mouth to speak but Mizumi must have been afraid that she was going to somehow give Mua the information she wanted about Erliao because Mizumi threw up a hand to beg caution. She then winced as she did so and her cheeks blanched. The sudden movement had sent another jolt of pain across the freshly stitched cut on her arm. She looked faint, being in the same room as the woman who inflicted the wound could not be helping to ease the pain.

Mama Mua noticed this flinch as well. "Oh, so Ah struck you after all!" She sounded a bit proud. She then caught sight of Ayika's frown. "And for that Ah apologize. Come, show it here." She held out her hand, palm up.

Mizumi drew back still further. "No, that is all fine. I have had it tended to. The pain is only when I make a quick motion." She was not ready to admit any weakness to this woman who she still saw as a crazed would-be vigilante.

Ayika leaned in. "Mizumi, I think you should show it to her. Whatever else she might be I've heard she's a healer. A costly one sure enough for my sort but when she caused the harm I think it's fair for her to provide the remedy. Trust me, this is one thing the People of the Tribes are good at."

It was with considerable reluctance that Mizumi extended her arm and drew back her sleeve. When Mua moved forward to grab her hand she reflexively jerked back. Mizumi then apologized and presented her wincing arm again but this time Mua caught hold of her hand and quickly started unwrapping the bandage. The healer grunted in approval at the stitching. "Competently done. It's a pity I'll take them out right now."

Mizumi was quiet with tight pressed lips as Mua cut and drew forth the stitches from the once more bleeding cut. The Fire Nation woman did not make a sound despite the tears in the corners of her eyes. Ayika complied with the silent wish and decided not to see those drops or the sudden pallor of her skin. Then the wound was clear. Mua stuck her own arm out to the side and swept her hand through a shallow water-filled dish that was set on the ground beside her. As she drew her hand up again the water clung to her palm by invisible force, a centimeter thick glove-like blob which had decided to disregard the ground's attractive tendencies. This was waterbending. Mua lowered her water-wrapped hand down over the cut. Then a flickering unearthly glow began to glimmer up from the site. Ayika shivered. The power of benders always made her slightly uneasy. Here in this strange house the feeling was amplified.

"There, it's done. As well as will be done," Mua said as she sat back, flicking the spent water from her hand into a different empty bowl. The cut no longer oozed blood and indeed looked like it had known two weeks of restful healing. Mizumi breathed out, untensing muscles she had not realized she had tightened. Ayika scooted her stool over a little once more so she could reach out to give reassurance. Mizumi shook her head to wave her away but she smiled at the gesture.

That episode had been short in duration but it had still given Ayika time to make up her mind about Mua. There was something more with Erliao that Mua wasn't telling them. This anger she held against the minister was not just the fresh heat that might be expected if she'd suddenly learned he had murdered her friend. This was directed inward. Somehow, Ayika knew she had hated him long before she thought he murdered Lizhen. But Mua knew more about spirits than any living person Ayika knew. And she had known Lizhen. Maybe she knew enough to figure out to stop what the Masks were doing to the city. Enough to finish whatever Lizhen had been trying to do that night with that mystery mask artifact. Whatever had gotten him killed. If only they could find that lone mask Ma'er had presented to Lizhen. The murderer had stolen it. Somehow that was the key. Key to what she didn't know. The nationalists had so many more masks, why was that one important?

"Nia Mua," Ayika began. "I've also been seeking to find Professor Lizhen's killer. And those Masks have been doing more damage since then. We should work together. I'll tell you everything we know and you can do the same. And maybe you'll get your chance to lay hands on Erliao."

Mizumi jumped up as she gestured to Mua with her newly healed arms. "Ayika, no. She is a dangerous unstable person who thinks she can see spirits! You cannot send her after the minister when we have no proof! Who knows what she might do!"

Ayika looked up to meet Mizumi's eyes. "You think she's crazy? Because she says she can see spirits?" There was a bit of a bite in her voice.

Mizumi flinched back with sudden hurt. "No, Ayika, that is not what I-"

"She doesn't believe ya, child. She doesn't believe what ya saw," Mua broke in. "This doesn't surprise me. Many who think themselves modern are ignorant on those matters."

Ayika was still only looking at Mizumi. In some distant way she noticed that a strand of hair had fallen over Mizumi's eye and she had not yet brushed it away though it must be very annoying. "You really don't believe me?"

"No! It is not that! I believe... I believe what you say but she might have deceived you last night somehow with some stupid triba-" Mizumi clamped her mouth shut suddenly.

A weight tugged down at Ayika's stomach. "Some what? Some Tribal trick? That is what you were about to say, weren't you?" Ayika felt her temper beginning to rise. "Because Tribals are known for their deceptions and treachery which is the only way they weren't obliterated in the war, right? That's what we're all like, huh? Superstitious liars?"

Mizumi stepped forward and then stopped. "That is not... I..."

Mua said to Ayika, "Cease yelling at your...friend, girl. Most don't believe what isn't before their eyes. But we can remedy that."

Ayika whipped her head back around in confusion. "What, how?"

Mua leaned back and took another sip from her flask. "Why, show her the spirits of course."

...


	35. Call

...

"By order of Portmaster Seiran, the Gaoli Import Company's extra-national commerce approval has been suspended pending completion of the inquiry into the warehouse fire. At which time-"

After this line the rest of the message being read aloud was drowned out by a chorus of shouted complaints from the gathered longshoremen. This was not their normal work location, that having been by the site of the fire. They were now at the farthest downriver reaches of Kuang Harbor, docks and had hitched rides on boats or walked kilometers to get there. Now they were being told there was no work for them. Out on the water, other ships steamed in and out over the breadth of the dirty Kuang, mocking them. Xiaobao stood among his fellow longshoremen and though he was not yelling with them he had his arms folded as he simmered with similar anger. It looked like it didn't matter that Xinfei was nowhere to be found today. There was no job to be had.

Beside him an older man named Chouyu yelled out, "Come on, man! The boat's right there behind us! If the boss can't sell the shipment right away we can at least unload it! And get paid!" He gestured to the riverside behind them where just as he had said a large metal-hulled ship of foreign design and Fire Nation flags was lashed to a mooring spot clearly not designed for a vessel of that magnitude. It had come upriver several hours ago and its captain was just as unhappy as the men on the shore about this delay. But instead of waiting here he'd left to go be unhappy at Mister Miohuito, his Islander employer.

The man holding the notice of closure yelled back at the other shouting workers. He wobbled slightly at his perch standing on the low stone barrier. "Hey, I'm just reading! I got nothing to do with what it says. Take that talk up with Seiran!" This man had only been made the messenger when Foreman Jun Doe's reading skills proved to be far too slow for the patience of the audience, and so the substitute felt he didn't deserve this ill treatment.

Another worker behind Xiaobao spoke up. "Might be as well. You all heard what happened last night. Lower Ring folks got up in arms and burned down half the Boss's mansion for doing trade with the Islanders! I heard the Middle Ring's still on fire. They could come after employees next as, what you say, collaborators. I don't need my family exposed to that kind of danger for simple day-pay."

This man was immediately shouted down as a coward by the standard impulse of dockworker machismo. However, a few others nodded grimly at the sense in what he said. Even here at the tail end of the harbor town, past the Exclusion, their crowd had attracted unwanted attention. A few members of the unemployed rabble that fueled street-level politics in the city had traced the company's migration to these temporary quarters and were shouting out unimaginative insults at those who dared to derive an income from foreign sources. Most of the slurs were variations on words for traitor, but a few could be interpreted as unwelcome prophecies for the health and welfare of their families.

Jun Doe tried to regain control of his work-crew, but with no prospect of pay they didn't feel obliged to listen to him and the frustrated men began to very quickly divide into two camps. One side advised not presenting a target to the growing nationalist influences, the others said they should stand by their bosses and livelihood in defiance of the crowd. Both were calling the others stupid and cowardly, so if Xiaobao's experience was anything to go by it would be less than two minutes until the first punch was thrown and someone got tossed in the river. The ragged nationalists loafing down the road took this commotion as a sign to renew their shouted invectives.

Xiaobao was a sturdy young man. When he moved foreword even an angry crowd parted so it only took a few firm strides until he was through the audience and stepping up onto the low brick wall that was currently serving as a stage and podium. He pushed the message-reader aside with a rather rude shove which nevertheless seemed to be received gratefully. Being the focus of that crowd was not pleasant.

"Enough!" Xiaobao bellowed out. "Shut it! Hey! Shang, step back or so help me I will put my hand through your teeth! Huh!" To his own amazement the men actually stopped to listen to him and the brewing fight settled down. Xiaobao was always surprised when people listened to him. Somehow in his mind he had remained a skinny ten year old boy coming to work at the docks beside his father. His father still loomed too large in his mind for anyone to be seen under that shadow. Everyone else remembered his father but saw the Bao son, a man who would help anyone in trouble and who could deal out a great deal of trouble to anyone starting it. A young man who had continued to earn the renown his father had paid dearly for. There was respect along the water for that family.

"All right," Xiaobao said hesitantly, having suddenly found himself with an audience. "Um, if any of you are worried about the safety of your homes then beating on each other down here at the other end of the town isn't going to do anything. I doubt Portmaster Seiran's going to listen to anything we say here and just come cut the tape on this boat."

Someone yelled out. "Yeah, Xiaobao's right! We should go back and protect our places. Those Lower Ring nationalists could come this way tonight. We can form some kind of neighborhood guard. Show all those who aren't working for import that we're not going to be trifled with. Yang Shipping would probably be with us for another. A lot of our houses are together near the Sweetwater Line. We can protect them easy."

That neighborhood, a low rent area perched on the old river-bank right above the Bed, was home to a lot of the workers who were employed in the various foreign trade dependent industries. But even there the import dock workers made up only a bit more than half of the residents. Xiaobao raised his hand and nodded. "That's a great idea. There are always some folks looking to start trouble at times like these and a few men keeping watch over your houses in the street will probably scare them off good. But what about the other people on your street? Those who don't work on the docks or shipping houses? You guys are scared for your families. But all those folks who are angry at us and the Islanders, most of them it's because they're scared too. If they see us just gearing up to just protect our own then we definitely look like the enemy. That only makes us a target. But if we work to watch the whole neighborhood then no one trouble gets in and everyone sees that we're not what to be afraid of!"

"You're saying we should stay up protecting stupid anti-trade-idiots against themselves?"

Xiaobao raised his voice again. When he wanted to he certainly could. Those in the front row squinted their eyes and winced at his bellowing. "I'm saying everyone wants to be protected! No one who hasn't done anything yet should be treated like they have. Isn't that what we're mad about here?"

The men in the crowd heard the sense in this. The factions that had been on the verge of forming were now forgotten. These were men who prided themselves in being active. The prospect of jobless idleness and uncertainty had been worrying. Now someone was presenting a clear plan. Xiaobao had never asked anything of anyone before, so now everyone was ready to listen to him. Calls of agreement and support started going up for "Xiaobao's plan".

For his part Xiaobao was now feeling very nervous. It seemed that his coworkers had gotten a mistaken idea about his ranking. Even Forman Jun Doe was looking up at him expectantly. All he could think to do was get them moving. "Um, yeah. All right. So we should get moving back if we aren't doing anything here." Hopefully someone else would start talking as they walked and take control back. He spotted a man with fleck of grey in his beard. "Um, Ming, you're on Broken Bridge lane, right?"

Ming nodded his head in a distressingly respectful way. "Yep, I can start going around doors there. And Li's got three others with him at the dead end behind the dumpling shop. Hey and, um... Chang! Come over here! We're planning out street captains for the Xiaobao!" He clapped a calloused hand on Xiaobao's shoulder. "Don't worry, we can help you manage this. You just lead the way."

Xiaobao walked along the paved harbor edge but he felt like he was walking on uneven water. In his mind the ground was shifting beneath his feet but now there were people looking up at him from below. He said a prayer to the river and to his father's soul and hoped that one of them could hear him. Clouds of coal smoke from steam ships and factories wafted back in answer.

...

Mama Mua made her way across the dimly lit room to swing closed the latch on her front door. "Can't be having walk-ins while doin a thing like this." Ayika felt Mizumi scoot her stool slightly closer to her side. Even if the Islander doubted the reality of this whole process the thought of summoning a spirit was not something to be taken lightly.

As Mua crossed back she drew something from a dark corner of the room. It was a long and thin bar of iron about the length of her forearm, like something that might hold a cooking pot over a fire. She thrust it in the coals of the fire pit as she tossed on more fuel. Then there was a sudden rush of light as the fire-pit burst forth in new flames. For a moment Ayika had the absurd thought that this woman of the Tribes was firebending, so quick was the rush of heat. Then she noticed a small foot-operated bellows under one of her feet. Each pump sent air rushing up through the now building fire. The smoke drifted up to be caught in a blackened opening hidden in the roof above them.

Mua began talking, mostly to herself. "This'll be difficult. Spirits of the earth culture don't like listenin to those whose hearts belong to another place and here we are three people just like that. Hopefully some of the stronger Shu are payin attention."

Mizumi said, "I do not understand. I thought that Ayika said you had several spirits with you last night. And who is Shu?"

Mua gave brief laugh. There was the sound in it of bittersweet memories. "Child, listenin to you is like hearin Chen again. Question, question. But with none of his tact." She waved her hand with an illustrative sweep. "Spirits are innumerable in their own world. When life was born out of the world-soul they rose up from the depths and the waves as they also came down from the peaks and rivers. They exist in reflection of our world as our world mirrors them. The Shu are the most powerful, those few spirits who care about the humans who were born from sand. The Shu rule river and valley, grove and field. But the Shu of this land are strange. The forests are gone, the mountains have been torn down, and the rivers have been split and mutilated. However, still there are those that watch us. They dwell in a world transformed by humans and they have taken much of that humanity upon themselves."

Ayika nodded, she had heard words to this effect before. Grandma Aka had often cautioned her clients that the traditional rites of the People did not always work right in this walled land.

Mizumi said, "And that is good, right? That they have learned to behave human?"

Mua turned to her and the shaman's eyes glinted in the reflected firelight. "How much do yah know about humans, girl?"

Mua reached down and grasped the cool end of the long iron rod that stuck out from the burning pile. As she drew it forth from the coals of the fire its point was now glowing red and angry with imbued heat. Seen through the smoke and wavering air above the fire she looked like a god in a temple raising a burning sword before her. Mua held the thin rod close to her face and its glow blushed over her cheeks. Then she opened her mouth and quickly licked her tongue across the red hot metal itself. Mizumi yelped. Ayika could not help flinching and looking away as every instinct screamed out but Mua was somehow unharmed. She called out an incantation in her native language as she plunged the glowing iron into a water barrel with a sharp hiss of sudden boiling.

Ayika felt a sudden tug behind her heart. Something had shifted in the corners of the world.

Now Mua spoke in the language of the Kingdoms again. "A sign is given. Now an alignment of soul and body must be achieved."

Much to Mua's irritation Mizumi had something to say. She spoke more quickly than she usually did. This display of matters far beyond her understanding had shaken her and she was trying to make sure her voice did not squeak. In her fervor Mizumi lost some words. "I just trying to understand. So you lick...That display acts as command for the power of the spirit world to arrive? What time interval does that require to be effect?"

"Quiet, child of fire. Your mind with science and gears is little help here. Your companion's the one with the gift. Now, Ayika." Mua sank down onto her stool and swayed her body as she closed her eyes. "The Shu expend energy to manifest here so only the strongest can cross over for us who will offer them so little. That energy can take a long time to gather so they are particular in who they meet. We will have to ask our questions quickly. Spirits have difficulty remembering our bodies. Ha, they barely understand wether we are alive or dead! They see our souls. We must display our souls as something one of their folk would want to meet. It will be a challenge, In this city they're accustomed to the earth-priests not us of the Water Tribes."

She continued, "Find your center. You must feel the power of the world. I know ya hear it. Don't worry about the city outside, the spirits who live in our world already have no reason to answer our petty call. We want a visitor from the other side. You must feel the ebb and flow of energy between this world and the other. Find that current and move with it. Wrap yourself in it and direct the motion. You're the river as it wanders through a wide fen. There are many courses but through your will ya can choose a single one and slowly carve down a cannel for it. Remember last night when ya saw the spirits. Remember what ya felt; the power. Accept and guide it."

Ayika sat with her eyes closed and tried to follow these directions. Her grandmother had sometimes used similar words to describe the way of living life like water. Aka of the Bed had always spoken of guiding rather than forcing, of deflecting danger rather than protecting against it. Although in her mouth it had sounded a good bit more aggressive than one might think from that imagery. Ayika had never been able to grasp that mindset as a philosophy. In her experience those who tried to ride the system were trampled by it. She'd never gotten anything but by assertion of herself, never kept anything but by bowing down. At every crossroads you must either submit and let another move over you or stand firm and force others to acknowledge your path. Both were correct from time to time, but if you tried to simply wear a channel through constant suggestion you would get nowhere. Men in masks would plant themselves in your way.

Perhaps there were translation issues at work here. Both Mua and Ayika's grandmother had grown up speaking languages different from the tongue of the Kingdoms. Maybe the different but similar messages they tried to communicate were intended to have other words. Ayika decided to focus on Mua's suggestion of concentrating on the memory of the last night. The sensation she had felt in the fog. The idea of ten thousand doors flung open in every brick and stone. She centered herself and planted herself in this new place and time.

She opened her eyes.

Mua was speaking in a slow murmuring tone. "This'll take quite a while. Even with whatever the disturbance of the last week weakening the boarder in worlds is it took me hours to achieve communication with the spirit side to call on their help for..." Mua stopped talking and opened her eyes as well. "One day I'll learn that mah speakin only tempts the world to act against me."

There were now four people in the room. Someone was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the fire.

He was proportioned like a full grown man but very small. Though his frame was strongly built even Ayika had five handbreadths of height on him. His bare shirtless skin glistened with the dim outline of scales and the face on his small head was twisted and bestial like that of a painted lion. It was like one of the wooden faces worn by the Masks. Ayika could look straight through the sitting man's transparent form to see Mua's slightly obscured figure behind, but then he turned and his eyes were like two roaring bonfires on a distant nighttime hill.

The spirit was naked to the waist and he planted his hands on his knees. They were not the shape of human hands and the claws glowed like hot coals. "Well?" said a voice that was more a suggestion than a sound. "What's all this about then?"

Ayika was sure she did not know how to answer that question.

...


	36. Answer

...

Beside Ayika, Mizumi was still waiting patiently on her short stool for something to happen. Now and then her eyes glanced around the fire-lit room with the vague suspicion that she might be missing some detail. She did not see any change but for now she had managed to subsume her anxiety beneath her curiosity. Despite Mua's proclamation of the intent to show her spirits she clearly couldn't perceive the new arrival in the fireplace.

Mama Mua was curious now as well, but for obviously different reasons. She brought her brows together as she looked at the spirit sitting cross-legged in the middle of her fire. She said:

"I don't know you."

Mizumi jerked back in surprise at the fortuneteller speaking to thin air and opened her mouth to respond before Ayika put a hand on her friend's knee. Mua did not notice this interaction. She was still looking at the little orange man. "I was expecting to see the Southern Girding Shadow or Dark Streams. Before, when I-"

The spirit barked a soundless laugh. "Ha! You sure think a lot of yourself don't you, human? What, next are you going to be wanting Lord Blind Dog setting up shop outside your door? The Wall's consort and Chained River's child, really? But first thing's first, what've you got for me in this world? Exchange of gifts and all that."

Mua was irritated. This was not what she'd expected. But Ayika had seen her grandmother act out the spirit ceremonies before, even if Ayika was not sure they'd ever been attended. She cleared her throat. "Erm...Hello."

The glowing spirit spun in place without changing posture, as if he was on a pivot. Now he was facing Ayika and she could see through his ephemeral flesh to where Mua was frowning at the back of his head. He smiled. "That's more like normal. Was hoping you'd speak up. Well, come on, give what you've got. What is it?" He held out a clawed hand. The tips sputtered and sparked.

Ayika flicked her eyes over and saw Mama Mua holding her tongue for now. Mizumi was inspecting the coals of the fire very suspiciously as she tried to follow Ayika's eye-line in this conversation with invisible air. Ayika had somehow seized control of this interaction from Mua and now had to respond to the spirit. She swallowed quickly and hoped that Mizumi didn't see that. "Information is what we want so information is what you get." But what to tell him?

She studied his, for lack of a better term, body language. This little spirit was grasping, searching. Most of his words were questions. There was a desperation. A searching for a place. And he was fiery. Spirits rarely cared about humans or this world in general. What would such a being value? Mua had said that things in this world were echoed by the spirits. Grandma had said spirits had a need to be echoes.

Ayika put her palms down on her knees, crossing her ankles below her stool to subtly mimic the spirit's posture. "Things change quickly in this world. And I bet it's hard to keep up on current events over in the spirit world. Even fire works differently here now. There're little sticks, sticks dipped in special clays that you can flick once against stone and make a flame. They call them matches. Any person can do this as easily as an Islander bender. This is really new, so I doubt all the spirit world knows about it yet."

The spirit seemed very pleased with this, though he tried to hide it. "Hmm? There are? Well of course I suspected. I was just over in this world two hundred years ago, did you know? I see things, don't I?"

Mua stamped her feet on the ground before her stool. "All right. That's enough. Ya clearly accepted her offerin. Now how'd a puny little thing like you even get here to answer my callin!"

The spirit in the fire puffed himself up as he declined to swivel to face the irritated woman. "That is hardly the proper way to address..." It abruptly cut off as he peaked out of the corner of its glowing eye and saw Mua had plucked forth a small clay disk from her sleeve. She was brandishing it at him with an angry glare. Ayika got the impression the spirit was now thanking its immaterial nature that stopped sweat from springing up across its suddenly nervous brow.

Mua twisted the corner of her mouth up in a smile. "I thought so. You may be fire but ya are bound by the stone traditions of this land. But such a little thing as you doesn't have the power to cross over the veil at this paltry calling. Especially a spirit of fire. This is a land of earth and the calling was by water souls. Explain how ya wormed your way in front of all the others of your kind." She held the clay disk in both hands as if threatening to snap it with a twist. There was a symbol drawn on it in some dried dark liquid. Ayika did not recognize the shape.

"Hey, hey. Is that needed?" the little spirit asked in a worried tone. He seemed even smaller now as he rapidly swiveled back and forth to face both Mua and Ayika. "I didn't sneak in! I hardly had a choice, didn't I? Things are getting awfully crowded on the other side. All the big ones are either already holding their own door or prepping for what's building. The usual crossers are just staying over here since they can so easily now. Even all those new doors are claimed by the grabbers as soon as they pop up. For one of mine, sure this calling's by earth and water but right now I might as well use an advantage. It's about time mine got a leg up here, right? And you humans can't complain about me popping over what with what you're keeping across in our world, can you?" He squirmed as he looked at the little disk in Mua's hand. "Come on, enough already. Let her ask her gift won't you? The veil won't be like this forever and I don't mean to miss it. Hasn't been something like this in ages and even Lords' court can't do nothing about it!"

Mizumi was thoroughly lost in what to her seemed like sporadic outbursts of half a conversation followed by long silences. She had gathered that there was something that she could not see or hear but watching Ayika and Mua's reactions to the silent speech had greatly unsettled her. There was some sort of fire spirit here. For a moment her memory was back in the fire temple back home listening to the ancient chants of the sages. She shivered from memory of the blasting heat.

Ayika gathered her thoughts. She'd given information as a ritual gift and so she was entitled to information. Apparently Mua's questions didn't count and the little spirit in the fire had just been flustered enough to answer them outside the terms of the ritual. But what to ask? What would the spirit know?"

"Spirit," she began. Mua narrowed her eyes at Ayika continuing to preside but gave the slightest of nods. "You said things are happening in the spirit world. Things are happening here too. Things we need to find out more about. People are putting on masks and when they do, they begin to show more than human power. Something that's very different from bending. They must be drawing this energy from the spirit world so you must have some knowledge. My question is who is giving the mask wearers their orders? Who is their leader?"

"What? How should I know what humans are doing to...?" The orange man saw Mua waving her little disk with the symbol again. He did not like that little disk. "All right! Can I think for a moment?" He scratched at his scaly beard with glowing claws. "Humans drawing from the other world? Spirits giving power? Could you be talking about the grabbers? I know they've got a talon or two over to your side. It was all mostly nothing, even with all the new little doors, till your guy started making his big scene and mixing up all the walls. Grabbers could barely influence anything before. Ha! Soon enough the strongest old crossers are going to look weak compared to those who are leaping at those new callings. It's a loophole, isn't it? Coming over from the inside. And your guy is keeping all yours with us but soon enough it'll all come back over here. Those really want to even if he doesn't."

Most of that description was nonsense to Ayika. The spirit jumped back to attention from his high speed ramble. His mind seemed to leap and jump like the flames he sat in. "Oh, the questions! A leader! It's tricky, the wearers is switching, you know? And I wouldn't know who says the leading among you humans, but there is the door maker. Shouldn't you feel him? Out there making deals with him of yours that's messing with the walls. The leading might be send out with the doors the humans put on their faces."

The little fire spirit was frustrated, but it was not from being forced to talk but rather from seeing that the humans were barely understanding what he said. He was just a lesser thing in the spirit world. His family had formed their alliance with that first flash of light, the spark jumping to the state of flame. Understanding how humans thought and spoke was beyond his purview. Ayika had thought of translation issues before but here was communication across worlds. No wonder the knowledge fortunetellers dispensed was usually garbled. Even when the spirits were helpful they were not of much help.

Mama Mua was deep in thought. Ayika couldn't tell if the other woman had understood more of the spirit's speech. Mizumi was taking turns smiling nervously at the blank air and looking at Ayika expectantly. She could only hope that Ayika chose to fill her in on the conversation that was happening beyond her perception.

Ayika scrunched up her face in frustration as she spoke her thoughts out loud. "The one who weakens the walls? And then the doormaker? On faces? That one must be the masks. The doormaker is the one who's enchanting the masks? But then he's talking about another who's causing the problem with the boundary between us and the spirit world. Rah! What does it mean?"

The spirit waved his glowing claws noncommittally. "What do any of you humans mean? I tell you, you all are mystifying."

"But ya can sense them?" Mua's voice was tight and hungry. The fingers of her free hand dug into the fabric of her robes on her thigh. "These masks. Your doors. The spirits can sense them? Know where they are? They can find him and get me too him? Tell me how! Tell me how to get at that bastard!" Those questions gradually shifted from inquiry to demands. She was still convinced Erliao was responsible. There was a past there that Mua had yet to explain. And maybe Erliao was involved with this crisis as she thought but now it was there were at least two actors. Mua didn't appear to be concentrating on that fact. She was obsessed with the promise of getting another chance to grab Erliao since Ayika had accidentally thwarted the last. What she planned to do once she had him, Ayika didn't know.

Instead of answering Mua, the spirit looked over at Ayika. Evidently, he had remembered that he didn't have to answer Mua's questions since Ayika had accentually slipped into the ritual as the one to pay the information price. Ayika nodded at him in a commanding way and he sighed. "Well, I can't sense him. The doormaker. I don't know this world at all. You're the ones who live here. But if you lot really are that blind you could try one of the spirits who live over here with you. Ask the local powers." The spirit gave a snort of laughter. "But good luck with that. I hear their alliances with the humans are fraying. You all must not be holding up your end."

A memory was jogged in the back of Ayika's mind. Professor Lizhen was in his classroom talking about how cultures attracted spirits who acted as their allies and patrons. But he'd said there was a two way connection. Both benefited but both could also see that attachment dissolve. Like falling out of love. She saw Xinfei reminding her that people hardly ever went to the government temples these days. No one had trusted the priests since the war. The war had lasted too long. People didn't want to think about their city of safety and walls having borders with other worlds. Fire Nation fashions were more popular than stodgy old stories. So they gradually forgot to even pay lip service to the other half of the universe.

Ayika spoke quietly. The words came to her mouth as the thoughts solidified behind her eyes. "And now people are scared. They're desperate for any power they can claim for their own and are calling for whatever might be coming. And new things have answered. Not the spirits who love this land but others."

Mizumi shivered.

Mua was tapping a finger against her knee. She looked irritated but thoughtful. "Ask the powers of the city. Hmm, Ah burnt though most of mah accumulated favors, but there's always a chance..." She cut herself off and shook her head slightly.

"There's one last thing," Mama Mua said. She tilted her head to look at Ayika. The beads hanging from her cloth-wrapped headboard dangled before her eyes. "The reason we started this whole thing here." She clapped her hands and yelled at the spirit in the fire. "Spirit. I'm going to need ya to fully manifest. There's one here who needs to see ya."

The spirit lost the last shred of his twitchy composure. "That's not fair! How am I going to use the information she gave me about wooden bender sticks if you make me spend all my energy showing up to that one! Two humans seeing me, three, what's the difference?"

Mizumi was sitting up very straight on her stool. Her perfect posture and serious expression would have been acceptable in audience before the King of Kings. She seemed to be mentally filling in the gaps in the conversation that was to her half empty silence. It was apparent to her that Mua's request had provoked some resistance. She was afraid and yet she spoke smoothly and clearly to the featureless fire she saw before her. "If there is a difficulty, it will not be necessary to manifest yourself to me. I am thoroughly convinced by what I have heard and respect your discretion, noble spirit." Ayika felt a smile twitch at her lips. When Mizumi was afraid, she tended to behave as if she was an officer in the army. It was precious, but she deserved to see what they were dealing with.

Ayika said to the spirit. "Ms Mua here crafted your summoning herself for that purpose. I really doubt you have a choice in the matter of showing yourself." She leaned forward with a bit of a grin. "Do you?"

The spirit's pout said all she needed. Behind him Mua smirked wickedly.

Ayika decided to soften the command. "Don't worry. I'm sure you and your kin will be able to delight in all the match-sparks you want before you know it. And you did say that it was much easier to cross over lately. You'll get your chance. But for now, please, follow the terms easily."

For a moment there was only silence. The inhuman mask-like face frowned up at her. Then the little spirit slowly got to his feet. He was still standing in the fire and neither flame nor coal reacted in the slightest to his presence or his motion. His burning eyes met Ayika's and he bowed.

Since his first appearance, the flames of the firepit had shown no interaction with the spirit that had suddenly occupied in their space. In fact the flickering tendrils had continued right through his crossed legs unimpeded. Suddenly, that changed. The little orange man was concentrating and he was more...solid. The fire spread around his feet and lapped up the skin of his legs. He was now fully part of this world.

Mizumi gave a sharp intake of breath. Every muscle of her body stiffened as her eyes now locked in on the spirit in the fire. She could see him. The glow of the fire made her cheeks look flushed with gold and her hair glistened with a shine like copper thread amid black. Behind her widened eyes Mizumi's world burst forth into new boundless terrifying possibilities. It was all she could do not to leap out of her seat. She could barely breath. The spirit looked back at her.

"All right, that's enough. Better head off before her muscles snap right off her bones." Mama Mua waved her hand.

Ayika saw the spirit look at her so she stood up and bowed. "Thank you, spirit. It has been an honor."

The spirit grinned with his bestial muzzle and nodded back. His former reluctance was now forgotten. "Glad I could help! You humans really are something. I glance away for a few centuries and you come up with something like matches! What is it with you guys?" Then he snapped his clawed fingers in sudden realization. "Hey! One last thought for free. I know a spirit on your side you can ask about finding your mask leader, and he'll be easy to find! Old Nine-Step-Shadow has already taken an interest in one of you here. Can see it in this room easy enough now that I remember him. He sure knows how to find humans, ha! Talk to him since he's already coming to you. All right, I'm off! I only have enough energy left for-"

And with that the little orange man blinked out of existence.

"Hey! I actually heard that!" Mizumi was strangely excited. Despite her fear, she finally felt included in being able to hear both sides of the conversation.

Mua just grunted and continued staring at the empty fire. "Damn spirits, they always assume ya know everyone. I've been here ten years and Ah doubt Ah know half the resident spirits in this little corner of the city. Who's Nine-Step-Shadow?"

Ayika did not say anything. She was not sure she could. Her throat felt like it had swelled up. She knew Nine-Step-Shadow. Grandma Aka had told her about him since Ayika was a little girl. It had been one of those late night stories of escalating terrors that culminated in Ayika's years long fear of the vaguely defined Scissors-Man. Nine-Step-Shadow was one who you just caught out of the corner of your eye. Just a shadowy figure a few paces behind you who was gone when you looked again. Nine paces behind. The next time you see him, and it could be weeks later or only days, he's eight paces away. Then seven. Then one day he'll be tapping your shoulder and you'll know that soon this life would soon be over. Grandma Aka had insisted that he was a kind spirit, only attempting to give frail humans a bit of foreknowledge of that most significant event. But to Ayika he was just death. Spirits didn't see any difference in humans as they reincarnated. The little man in the fire did not understand death or know why they three might fear it. She wondered if Grandma had seen the Shadow before she went.

She looked at Mama Mua, the woman who tried to appear weathered and fearsome but below it was still trapped in her youthful past. She looked at Mizumi, beautiful and flushed with excitement and terror and determination all at once. Her hand was balled up against the side of her foreign trousers. She was ready to fight everything she saw. Then Ayika looked at her own hands clasped tight in front of her. Nine-Step-Shadow was coming. One of them was going to die. And it would be soon.

Ayika barely responded to whatever was said next. Mizumi had to take the lead in extracting them from Mua's company and making promises to stay in contact about any new discoveries regarding Erliao or this citywide spiritual disturbance. Ayika only snapped back to to attention to seize on a comment Mua made about possibly assisting her in shaman training. She pulled a promise from a Mama Mua who was startled at her sudden intensity. She had to know more. There had to be some way to control spirits. To keep them away. To make them not mean what Grandma Aka had so clearly said they meant.

Outside Mua's house Mizumi nervously blew air through her teeth. "Whoo. I must say that was not what I had thought was going to happen today. Honestly, Ayika, I had thought your big secret was that you were an untrained waterbender. So it would have been in the stories. Spirits. I mean that I... But do not worry. We now know that the Masks are somehow using spirit power to disrupt the spirit world and gain power themselves here. We will figure out a way to stop them." She hazarded a smile at Ayika, attempting to break though the serious cast that had settled on her friend's face.

Ayika turned back at Mizumi. It was hard but she returned the smile. She couldn't say anything to worry Mizumi. Mizumi couldn't even see the spirits, and was still wrapping her head around believing in their physical presence. But that was ok. Ayika was by her side and would protect her. Back in the sunlight of the square outside Mua's house Mizumi's skin glowed with the exhilaration brought on by an escape from profound nervousness. Every flick of her bright eyes breathed life and energy. Ayika continued to smile but at her side she clenched her fist. Those men in masks were trying to tear apart her city. They'd killed Professor Lizhen. They'd burnt the Bao brother's job. They'd attacked Lili's house and family. They were turning the people of the city against all foreigners and migrants. And they had stirred up powers beyond their control which now might threaten Mizumi. But no more. She had a secret now too. She had found power. She was no one, nothing; but she swore that they would break against her.

...


	37. Willows

...

It was late and the sky was purple with the onset of night when Xiaobao managed to make his way down the irregular stone and wood path down the border of the Bed. There'd been some talk among the dockworkers of expanding their newly established neighborhood watch-guard to include sections of the Bed as well, but the eventual consensus was that any ring-dweller who found his way down those slimy slopes would end up face down in the mud without his purse, shoes, and perhaps a bit of his throat before he got twenty paces. The residents of the Bed were their own protection.

Xiaobao was tired from being in the unusual position of being asked for his opinion every few moments over the last several hours. He hoped that by tomorrow Jun Doe or one of the other older men would take control of this new neighborhood protection initiative so he could stop worrying about accidentally saying the wrong thing. His thoughts were fuzzed by weariness and also by the few cups of rough rice wine that someone had generously forced on him. Once things had gotten rolling, the fear and anger that had motivated the dockworker men rather quickly gave way to an almost party-like atmosphere. These were men who did not like being idle. With Gaoli's business frozen and their employment in jeopardy any organized activity was a source of comfort. Especially if there was the potential for cracking the heads of some ignorant conservative ring-dwellers who might come near trying to start trouble.

As Xiaobao approached the family's tiny apartment squashed in this damp winding alley he saw someone sitting out on the narrow ledge that was vaguely nailed in front of the door to serve as a miniature porch. His brother's long gangly limbs trailed out into the path like a house-frame ready to be raised. It looked like he might have been out there for a long time.

Xiaobao called out as he approached, "Hey, Xinfei! I missed you at the ship. But it was all the same, the green-hats are still holding things sealed with stamp ink. Since this afternoon I've been getting the guys organized to..." He shook his head as he thought of the aging longshoremen starting to talk of patrol routes and codewords like they were fresh recruits in the army. "Well, it's not so much a Watch as a..." Again he trailed off. "It's been a strange day."

Xinfei glanced over a his brother before looking back up at the little strip of sky visible between the close press of haphazardly assembled roofs. Through one gap he could see a massive stone bridge arching over these buildings as it connected two proper sections of the Harbor Town. "Yeah, it's been a strange day for me too."

"Yeah? Where were you, watching Ayika behind the laundry counter all day? And just what did she have to say about that? I told you you should ask her."

His brother shook his head, "She didn't say anything. I never spoke with her. She got called over the Exclusion by the... by Mizumi and then she sent Lili Gaoli back out to the town so I could escort her to the Middle Ring. I spent the day riding back and forth from the Middle Ring on the tram line. I... I think she gave me a job."

Xiaobao was the first to admit that he was perhaps a little more easily flummoxed by rapid information than his brother but he felt that anyone would have been thrown by those revelations. His mouth worked open and closed a few times before his speech found its footing. "Who? Gaoli's daughter? From the Middle Ring last night? Yeah, she would need to get back home from the Exclusion today but why did she call on you? Wouldn't her dad send a whole bunch of professional guys to watch over her? And wait, what job?" What had his brother gotten into now?

"Yeah, he did send a bunch of guys. It was really awkward when she made me ride in the carriage with her. They did not like a street-rat being so near their precious lady." Here Xinfei's scowl softened into a hint of a smile and he started to show renewed energy. "To tell the truth I think that Lili girl had a great time messing with them. She's a lot less formal than I would've thought and more invested in this whole mystery of masks and foreigners. And wait, the best part! She's willing to provide bankroll for my ideas! Not the investigation ideas I mean the products but I had thoughts about the Masks too. Those University Boys have to have gone to ground somewhere since last night but she is going to send out feelers in the Middle Ring and let me know if she gets a location. She being Lili. Ayika's basically disappeared to us. She walked right by me today without asking me to come with and sent me Lili instead." Xinfei's mood traced an undulating path during that speech as he jumped from contemplation to excitement to brooding.

Xiaobao quietly sighed. Xinfei might have phrased his complaint about Ayika's behavior as being directed at 'us' but the true abandonment that stung was that of 'him' by 'her'. Xiaobao had seen the way his brother had come to look at Ayika for the past few years but he'd also seen how those longing looks had never been reciprocated or perhaps even perceived. Of course, Xiaobao also thought that Xinfei had even greater obstacles in the way of his desires than a childhood friend only thinking of him like a brother. Not that he himself was in any position to mention those suspicions about Ayika.

Xiaobao rubbed his brow as he organized his thoughts. "So...Lili gave you money?"

Xinfei reacted with instinctive outrage at the insinuation of charity before getting himself under better control. "Gave? No! She...! She is financing merchandise that I can sell as part of a scheme to subvert her mother and the royal mail system. It's a guaranteed return on investment for her." But he could turn this conversation against his brother just as quickly. "So you're commander of a neighborhood watch now? The big boss? I heard quite a few things on my way back down. Very interesting things."

"No! I..." Xiaobao began to dispute the accusation before he stopped. "Things have been crazy haven't they?"

"Yeah, they have." Xinfei leaned back against the outer wall of the apartment and looked up at the darkening purple sky. Then he grinned guiltily. "Oh, and you have _got_ to see what that Anyakya has got Ayika wearing. The uniform, it's... it's something."

Xiaobao sighed. One thing at a time. They'd dawdled out here on the street for too long. Who knew how long Xinfei had been avoiding going inside? Xiaobao turned to open the apartment door. "Hi, mom."

Xinfei stayed outside. There was less reality there. Here he could just look up at the first star beginning to peak out over cracked mismatched tiles of the Bed.

...

Lili sat in the courtyard garden pavilion of the Gaoli mansion. She was twisted back on her sleek couch to look at the swaying willow tree beyond a stone-bound ornamental pool. The water's edges were jagged with a rough assemblage of rocks in black and grey that supposedly held meaning in the whorls and rough peaks across their irregular surface. A high and distant cloud passed near the noontime sun and temporarily lent the ground and water a shifting dappled texture. As she held out one arm propped against the couch-back a single finger bushed sunlight before a wisp high above cast it into an expanded shadow. The breeze that twisted the ten thousand tiny green leaves of the willow tree carried on over the compound wall and out over neighborhoods of the Middle Ring until it could vault over the ring wall and soar off into the sky of blue and white.

This house had been large until she was forbidden to leave. Lili was a great reader of romances. However, though she delighted in the heroic imagery and intricate interplay of prophecy and fate with the power of emotion and determination she had always held a vaguely articulated distaste for the traditional female lead. This character was always a woman who was beautiful and intelligent but frail and aimless, who languished in sorrow as she contemplated her dreams under willow trees in the garden. Lili had only been confined for three days since the riot but already the boredom was painful. Somehow the lack of other options poisoned even activities she typically enjoyed. She supposed daydreams might be worthy of sorrow when they were all you had.

Another woman up from spoke across the small open walled pavilion. "Ah, I believe I have one! The theme was plum blossoms, correct? Though I fear I might have gotten a bit over-general with other types of tree blossoms. Well, that will be for you all to judge."

Lili turned back around to the interior of the structure where the three other girls were sitting in various lacquered chairs near small writing surfaces. Jing was the one who'd just spoken and the other two already held the slips of paper on which they had brushed down the characters of their poetry compositions. They were waiting for her. Lili looked down at her own paper where she had marked barely five words before resigning to her disinterest. But still she was the host of this get-together that her mother had arranged so she clapped her hands together in an imitation of enthusiasm.

"Excellent," she said. "Now, since I believe we agreed Huamei was the winner last round I think she should read her poem first. Alright?" This was greeted with nodded agreement and Huamei began to recite her poetry composition about snowflakes melting on the first bud to open that spring, far to early to survive the coming night's cold. The other girl did have some talent but in the end it was all so meaningless. All these poems would be discarded and forgotten by tomorrow and would never be spoken outside these walls. Out in the streets there were people chanting out calls for revolution.

Something of her dissatisfaction must have appeared on her face because when she looked back Huamei was frowning at her. "Perhaps Lili will go next. I am very excited to hear what she wrote." This was said with a gentle smile which only made the other girls' eyebrows arch further at the aggression it signaled.

Lili had not finished her composition. But she had some thoughts and decided to try letting the words find her mouth as she began to speak. The scattered characters on her paper guided her structure. Her lips parted.

 _The vine grows around the tree so tightly that neither can be told apart._

 _The season has been dry and both are fading as a single bud prepares to open._

 _The approaching spark is the only light to see which plant is flowering_.

There were some indifferent noises of appreciation. Jing skeptically tapped the arm of her chair with a hand fan, a perpetually closed accessory now that autumn had entered the air. "Perhaps the metaphor is rather excessive. The subject's vague enough that the mind is busy attempting to decipher the allusion instead of hearing the words. And as a little suggestion, Lili, ' _the approaching spark_ '? This is the third composition today in which you have used imagery from the night of that mob from the Lower Ring. The audience might have a declining reception." Her tone indicated she felt confident in assessing the mood of this particular audience.

Huamei could not resist adding a final comment. "And at no time did you specify that the tree was a plum tree. That doesn't fit the theme. Sorry."

Lili only replied with a shrug and a thank you for the criticism. She had tried to talk to these girls who had nominally been her friends for years about the political mess that was simmering in the city but they were not interested. They had been horrified by the beatings her neighbors the Gangs had received, though of course they were convinced that their attackers in the mob had to have been earthbenders. Huamei did allow the possibility that the father and son could have been overwhelmed by men with knives, but the general consensus was that any earthbender of their class could only be taken down by another bender. There was no mention of the Initiated. No one had heard anything about masks filled with impossible power. And they didn't care. They only said that thinking about such events was saddening and in any case it was all over now. The King's men would take care of everything.

The three of these girls had been chosen as friends for Lili by their family connections to her father. As long as Lili had concentrated her energy on fashion and scheming against other groups of merchant's daughters they had been fine companions. Now Lili thought of Mizumi and Ayika. Those two had not told her she was weird or imagining things when she wondered out-loud, in fact they had been much further afield from normal than her!

She hoped Mizumi wrote back soon. Xinfei had delivered Lili's letter and had returned with a reply once already. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to say much more than ten words to him when he arrived before one of her mother's servants had started coming too close to the tradesmen's door. Xinfei had been more excited talking about the products he had bought as part of the cover for Lili's communications than interested in actually saying anything about Mizumi's demeanor. Fortunately, the Fire Nation girl's letter itself had been more expansive.

As Lili had expected, Mizumi had expressed skepticism about her suspicion towards Trade Representative Tailang. The Islander girl would give her countryman the benefit of her doubt. Apparently, Mizumi and Ayika had learned something about sub-minister Erliao at the waterbending fortuneteller's. However, the Islander's language had been uncharacteristically indirect in referring to what precisely had happened there. She was also preemptively defensive about Ayika's trust in this woman so there had to have been something disreputable.

Not that Lili could say Mizumi had incorrectly guessed her reaction. Ayika was now apparently talking about speaking directly with spirits. Now, Lili had gotten the impression that Ayika was an honest woman but she was a tribal and...

Lili tilted her head slightly. Huamei had said something while she had been absently staring out into space. What was it that had caught her attention?

"Well, it's really not that surprising. You know what Seng is like under the best of circumstances."

Jing shook her head in vague disapproval as she made note that Lili's wandering mind had rejoined the conversation. "If it had just been her we wouldn't be mentioning it. But the headmaster is losing control of that school. Lili's lucky to have been out for the last week. You saw Liqiu and Huiling go at it yesterday. And from what I hear the younger girls are much worse. That teacher's death, um, Lizhen, has shaken everything up. And that fat housekeeper lady Mrs Jiangsu has been heard demanding that Headmaster Gang contact some ghost exorciser. Ha! I guess she is not too stupid if she saw the chance to blame her staff discipline problems on ghosts and shift the blame from herself."

Jiayi tittered nervously. It seemed not everyone was as secure as Jing in criticizing the suppositions of the lower classes. They'd all heard the same stories when they were children. The corners of Lili's mouth twitched up. After last night she could certainly respect that hesitance. Lili had seen the Masks and was so ready to dream more strange things.

Jiayi then tried to redirect conversation to some less spooky issue. "Staff problems? I knew they fired that one tribal girl, but I just assumed Gang ran out of patience for that particular charity case. It wasn't very seemly after all." Her tone made clear what exactly about Ayika had been unseemly.

Lili's smile fell. She no longer commiserated. Jiayi was generally a sweet girl and was probably just following Jing's lead but little things Lili had never really noticed before were starting to grate on her nerves. She was beginning to pay more attention to the words people chose. Deep within, she wondered what words she'd been using.

Huamei fielded Jiayi's question. "Seng said the staff have been quarreling as much as the students. And most of them have got to live in the Lower Ring, right? A few could easily have been up here...the other night." That appeared to be the agreed upon way to refer to the riot on the Fifth Hill. It was charmingly insufficient. It did not mention masked people ripping up iron street-lamps and punching barehanded through stone. It did not mention what had nearly happened to Lili's family.

"So did Gang listen to the matron?"

The other three girls looked up in surprise at Lili's interjection. Lili continued, "Mrs Jiangsu. Did Headmaster Gang listen to her and call in a priest or ghost specialist?" She tried to make her voice pleasant and only vaguely inquisitive but she suspected she did not entirely succeed.

Huamei tried to share a smile with her, perhaps misinterpreting the tone. "Don't worry, things haven't fallen apart _that_ far while you've been gone. This is still the Middle Ring after all. The priests did their spirit rituals when the professor died. All this talk of ghosts and curses and spirits bothering people is nonsense. People are just making excuses for their own bad behavior."

Maybe they were. Lili thought back to the mist-filled street between Erliao and the waterbender. She thought about the tramcar with Representative Tailang and about the stares of people on the harbor town streets. She remembered the Masks. Something strange was happening in the city. Mizumi had mentioned spirits. There was magic out there but she could not tell what was insidious influence and what was just stupid people being stupid. Why was it all so tangled?

She twisted on her couch to look back out over the garden pool. She hoped Xinfei returned soon with another response from Mizumi. The biggest city in the world was feeling far too large these days.

...


	38. Witchcraft

...

Ayika walked along the main Kuang Harbor road that led to the City. Ahead, the city wall grew from a landmark rising above the rooftops into a vertical horizon. Ayika was used to using her elbows and fighting to make her way along this elevated pedestrian-way to the Craftsmen's Gate. However, as she walked she was jostled on every side by hundreds of people also pushing towards the entrance to the city. Their backs were piled high with overstuffed packs, they pushed overloaded barrows, and had poles slung across their shoulders that carried further loads of goods and products. Below and to her left, over the edge of the elevated path, there was a constant groaning, grinding, creaking and bellowing as wagons and wains piled high with food slowly trundled in a close-packed stream. Then she was finally getting near the huge mouth of the Craftsman's gate and the press of the crowd grew even greater and louder. Fortunately, there was no required showing of passports at this gate. Residents of the enclosed land were generously allowed the privilege of the Lower Ring at specific times.

It would have been ridiculous to ride the tram to the first station inside the Inner Ring. She would have had to walk a third of the distance in the wrong direction just to reach the harbor station. Ayika muttered this rationalization to distract herself from the unpleasant realization that her Middle-Ring work-pass had now expired. She didn't work at the Legacy School anymore. Headmaster Gang wasn't going to issue a replacement tram permit anytime soon. So walking was her only choice if she wanted to reach to reach the location Mama Mua had declared as the next meeting place for Ayika's new 'apprenticeship'.

Apparently Ayika was her apprentice now. That was not how Ayika remembered phrasing their agreement but she was not going to press the issue. Mua still blamed her for accidentally thwarting the attempt to capture Erliao but they were both drawn to each other, frightened by the growing spiritual turmoil in this city that only they could sense. Ayika had no choice, Mua was a hope against the Masks and her only chance to learn to stop the omen of the Nine-Step-Shadow spirit. If there was a way at all.

It was dark as she trudged through the gate tunnel. Voices from the crowd reverberated off stone walls until the constant complaints and exclamations and accusations of theft no longer resembled the sounds of humans but had merged into an inorganic cacophony. Elbows continually hit against Ayika's chest and upper arms and by what little light there was she could only see sweat-stained backs and dirty packs. Then they were finally out.

On the other side of the wall the surging crowd was disgorged down a broad flight of stairs to a large paved square. This wide space clinging to the side of the gate-road was packed to the very edges with purveyors crouched on the ground beside their compact arrangement of wares for sale. Legally, these open spaces on each side of the wall were to be kept clear for reasons of city defense. However, since the government cared little about defending against people choosing to leave the city this side of the gate was left unregulated. A regular bribe to the guards meant that a small patch of dirty pavement was an unmolested address until someone was willing to exceed your payment.

Ayika managed to find her way through the confusing nexus of vendors and successfully pushed free of the gate-square market without purchasing anything. The buildings here in the Lower Ring were three stories tall at their lowest and every one was festooned with hanging cloth signs stamped with huge block characters advertising the businesses on the first and sometimes second floors. The brick and plaster that made the walls was often chipped and battered but lively paint covered much if it in enthusiastic if often unskilled patterns of brilliant colors. The merchants might live in the Middle Ring but here was the true center of commerce for the vast city.

After a few blocks of breif respite from the crowded press of the gate square the foot-traffic thickened again as Ayika approached the junction of the Lower Ring canals that ran nearest the gate. Here a chunk of buildings were missing from the roadside to be replaced with a long expanse of steps leading down to the brown water that could sometimes be spotted between the many wooden boats that jostled for space like ducklings butting together. The low woven canopies those boats had for heads undulated like swaying waves of grass. Boatmen were unloading goods for the Craftsman's square and other places. Others were calling out to Ayika and other passersby, offering to sell her something or buy her body in almost equal numbers. She ignored them.

This was where Mua had said they would be meeting but Ayika couldn't see other woman. However, after a moment she noticed a lone boat of a slightly different design floating some distance off down the shadowed canyon of a less trafficked canal. Standing the deck just above the waterline was a robed figure wearing a woven straw hat whose brim swayed with a screen of dangling ornaments. It was Mua and there were thirty meters of water between here and there.

Ayika waved and otherwise tried to attract the woman's attention. Either Mama Mua didn't see her or Ayika was being deliberately ignored. But the waterbender wasn't leaving so she must have not abandoned all intention of teaching. This was some kind of test. Ayika sighed and hitched up the flaps of her skirt past her under-trousers, folding the hems back behind her belt so they wouldn't get in the way. She was really sick of being tested.

The boatmen in the canal yelled out as this strange tribal girl suddenly leaped out from the bank onto their decks and sent their boats rocking as she bounded from one craft to another in rapid leaping strides. But for the most part the drivers were self-imprisoned behind the stacks of merchandise they'd arranged for transport and couldn't reach to where she skirted and vaulted across this constantly moving obstacle course. Then she landed on a boat on the outside of the press of the dock with enough force to send its nose spinning out into the traffic lanes of the canal. Ignoring the last batch of curses this incited Ayika casually stepped out over the water and onto a passing vessel that was making its steady way down the appropriate side canal.

This new boatman looked up from his rear oar at Ayika who was now standing on his prow and raised a single eyebrow. Ayika pointed over at Mua, still floating against the backs of the cannel-side houses and said:

"Just getting over to her."

The boatman shrugged and continued to slowly undulate his steering oar. Everyone knew that tribals were crazy.

Mama Mua met Ayika's eyes through the fringe of dangling beads along the rim of her round hat as Ayika hopped over onto Mua's boat.

"You're late, Ah believe."

She wore the same costume of black, blue and purple that she had worn when Ayika visited her house. It must have been her shaman uniform. The tiny disks of silver tinkled sometimes as she moved.

"I'm sorry, mam," Ayika said, taking her place on the little craft. There was plenty of room as Mua's vessel lacked the central awning that most canalboats had and was thus wide open but for a low deck and two planks to sit on. "Somehow I ended up on the wrong side of the canal. My mistake." When people played games with you, sometimes being viciously polite hurt more than any lash-back could.

Mua snorted in an unidentifiable emotion. "Well, we'd better be goin'. Poison creeps on them who sleep."

The shaman took hold of the oar on the rear of the boat and they began to slide froward across the dark water. It did not take Ayika long to notice that though in Mua's hand the oar swayed back and forth, the motion was far too little to propel them with this speed. The woman's free hand drifted and circled in the air to some unheard beat. A smile twitched at the corner of Ayika's lips. So, Mua was using bending to move them along through the water and hiding it. To most observers the effect would be unnoticeable save for a vague sense of unease as some corner of their mind felt the boat's motion gave some slight betrayal of expectation. Very appropriate for a witch.

Then Ayika noticed something else that should have jumped out at her earlier. This boat was pained along its edge in black, white, and purple with spots of blue; the same colors that Mua wore. That could not be a coincidence.

"You moor a boat in the Lower Ring?" Ayika asked. "Why? I mean, how'd you get a registration permit to own property in the City? You're no Ring citizen and I know it!" She felt offense at someone managing to get more than was their right coupled with admiration of someone finding a hole in the system.

Mua laughed. "Why? A boat saves walkin'. As for registration, no guard'll ever find it docked on this side so there's no danger. Worry more 'bout yourself and what we're doin' today." Mua had failed to elaborate on what that business was. The leather flask appeared in her hand and she took a brief swig as her other hand kept up the swaying pretense on the oar.

...

The narrow urban channel they passed through could just as easily have been one of the winding waterways of Kuang Harbor. The buildings on each side leaned out over the water and a web of hanging laundry formed a patchy roof in a familiar way. However, here there were three to four stories rising up on each side so that Ayika felt like the canal was slowly sinking down into the ground beneath them. They were rowing at the bottom of a well.

It was fifteen minutes before they reached their destination in a ramshackle quarter of the Lower Ring. Here the canal had grown so narrow that if another boat had come the opposite direction someone would have had to begin rowing backwards. Some of the buildings were old constructs of brick and stone that were dignified but ill-maintained while others looked like the most unstable houses from the Bed had been stacked and jumbled on top of each other. Stairs, ladders, and bamboo platforms clung to every outside surface of these buildings and Ayika was frankly astonished that she didn't see anyone fall off those rickety structures in the scarce seconds she'd been looking. Of course she was here in the company of a healer so perhaps someone had.

Mua managed to moor her boat by a little set of damp stone stairs that led down to the canal from a narrow and dirty alley. There were several young boys on the opposite side of the narrow waterway who were hanging off a wobbly staircase as they stared at the women disembarking. Ayika eyed them suspiciously. To her it seemed very likely that any property left under their gaze would not be there upon return. However, Mua spotted them as well. She did not say anything, she just slowly turned as the beaded fringe of her hat swayed from the motion. A thin stream of mist began to drift out of the deep sleeves of her robe like heavy smoke. The boys quickly decided they has somewhere they would rather be. Ayika followed Mua out onto the main street. This lady was dangerously obsessed with Minister Erliao and not very considerate about explaining things but Ayika had to admit she had style.

Mua's port of call here was revealed to a moderately sized apartment above a reed mat shop. It was one of the old buildings that had likely stood on this street for hundreds of years and was now more patchwork repairs than anything else. Of course, even buildings died sometimes. Ayika saw a gap down the block. There was a blackened pile of rubble, still smoking faintly in the noon light. Fires were a constant fact of city life but usually the fire brigades could prevent them from spreading far.

As they strode across the narrow street, crowded and noisy with the constant din of city commerce, it was clear that Mua was known here. An old woman was in the middle of screaming incessant abuse at an equally red-cheeked vendor when she stopped in mid-sentence to give Mua a respectful nod. Ayika noted the exchange. People respected benders it was true, but that was a respect based on fear. This was a different kind of respect. Respect for knowledge. Those who offered a chance of understanding the spirits were valued for their authority, not just their strength.

Ayika followed Mua up the narrow stairs to the second level of this aged building. Inside, the apartment's small parlor was rather crowded by nine members of a family waiting in silence. Then Ayika studied the tense scene again and she detected two distinct groupings. There were two men standing close by a young woman who was sitting in a chair looking at the floor. Those two men were bestowing dark looks on the other inhabitants of the room, particularly the other two males who might have been father and son. An aged lady was sitting in the corner and quietly murmuring prayers to herself. So it was family tension, a young bride's family had come to defend her from something. The bruises on her face indicated a likely explanation.

Mua stepped over the threshold and instantly radiated command of the room. The beads hanging from her hat and the little metal disks on her shoulders made soft sounds. All the men regarded her uneasily. A few took the smallest fraction of a step back, likely an unconscious reaction. Respect and fear were not so distant after all. No one paid any attention to Ayika. A woman in her early forties bustled forward to meet Mua.

"Mama Mua, thank you so much for agreeing to come! I know it was quite a out here trip but we tried to go to the temple and our district priest was just completely useless."

Mua nodded her head before removing her hat with a flourish of swishing beads. "Of course. I trust the son you sent to me got back through the Craftsman's Gate last night?"

"Oh, yes. Fong did. These new gate curfews are troublesome aren't they?" The mother was anxious. She was babbling, likely in avoidance of whatever had caused her to call for Mua in the first place. Despite Ayika's questions Mua had not been forthcoming as to why they were here. Suddenly the mother started, "Oh, forgive me. Second daughter! Go put some tea on! I am so sorry, it is very inconsiderate for me to not have offered you refreshment. Er," She paused. "You tribals do drink tea, right?"

Ayika frowned but Mua's expression remained smooth. "By custom, yes. But not now. Show me to your other son."

The mother fell silent, continuing to wring her hands together. After a moment a man of similar age, likely her husband, came forward to guide Mua instead. The assistance was hardly needed. This apartment was very large by Lower Ring standards with two rooms in addition to the parlor and kitchen Ayika had already seen. The family had three wooden beds for the seven people who lived there and only the youngest son had to sleep on a pallet on the floor. There was a small shrine set up in the kitchen with the name of the honored deceased written on a piece of framed paper above a few small offerings. It looked like a recent instillation. But though this household was better off than many an exhaustive search would have only taken seconds. Mua was unlikely to have missed the man tied to the bed.

The man was decently covered, although since someone had been loth to undo the bindings on each of his wrists and ankles the clothes had simply been arrayed on top of him like costumes on a paper doll to give the illusion of proper dress. His brow faintly shown with perspiration, as if he was feverish. He was also quite agitated. The man raised his head as Mua stepped into the small room.

"Who's this? Dad, why is there a tribal woman in the house? Mom? Jing? Someone out there talk to me!" He flopped his head back down against the thin mattress in frustration

Mua managed to regard the bound man with boredom. "All right, tell me the exact story once again."

The man raised his head up. "Look, it was just..."

Mua killed his voice with a flick of her hand and a glare. "I was not talkin' to you." Now her gaze traveled over to the father who was standing against the wall looking very embarrassed.

After several attempts to clear his throat the father began. "Er, it was last night. The whole neighborhood was out watching old Meng's place burn. You know it was the third place in this district for as many days. Something about the air this week..." He saw Mua had little patience for his digressions and cleared his throat. "Erm, right. Everyone was out watching it go up so no one really saw what-"

"Someone saw!" one of the two outsider men yelled out. "Jing sure saw and she's right here, you moth-eaten old fool! You-"

"Quiet!" screamed the bound man's mother. "Just quiet! Mama Mua needs to be able to hear so she can fix all this!"

The other man from the bride's family growled, "All that there's to fix is a little-"

"Ah agree with the call for quiet." Mua did not speak loudly but somehow she managed to cut right through to the heart of every listener. The arguing families fell back into an uneasy silence.

"Erm..." The father cleared his throat again. "Well, we were all outside watching the fire. Like I said. Only, Deng had just gotten back from his work and Jing, his wife that is, was feeding him some supper. And we were watching the fire when Old Xing came up and told us that she'd heard a great commotion coming from the apartment, like the hero Gong Wu was fighting his monsters between our walls. Well, we all rushed back and Jiang's people, they were there too, they came with us and we all came up to see the whole place tossed like a storm went through. Jiang was all cowering in the corner with her arms over her face and Deng, he was bright red. Flushed like a coal in the fire and all panting and he stood in the middle of the room like he couldn't see us."

The father at least had the decency to look embarrassed with whitewashing his son's culpability as he continued. "Well, his brother went up to Deng to see what was the matter and, well, he must have surprised him because Deng took a swing. And then Jing was screaming and we were all piling on Deng who was acting like he didn't know any of us. He was scared and angry and it took four to get him down on the ground and hold him long enough for him to calm down. Now as soon as he did and he wasn't panting no more his sense came back and he was asking what had happened. He was asking after Jing too, kept asking if she was ok."

One of Jing's brothers coughed in disbelieving anger. The bound man's mother mother interjected in a pleading voice, "He kept on apologizing, and then asking what happened, and then asking if she was ok! Over and over like that, like he didn't know what had happened. I figured that some dark spirit must have been clouding his mind. After he was on the floor it seemed to have left him but Jing's people insisted on tying him to the bed."

Mua looked over at young Jing who was still looking at the floor. The woman hadn't said a single thing throughout this. To Ayika her bruises spoke loud enough. She'd heard this kind of story before. A man got drunk and all his evil came bubbling to the surface like scum in a pond. And of course his family was always ready to blame everything except their own kin. This woman was lucky to have had her own family close by or things could have turned out much worse.

Mua now stared down at the bound Deng who looked back with all the very little dignity one could muster while tied to a bed and clothed only in the most technical sense. The shaman did not care, she addressed the rest of the family while still locking gaze with the bound man. "So he's been tied since last evening? Has he relieved himself?"

The mother nodded and gave a dark look at Jing's brothers, "Well, they wouldn't let us untie him so we used a jar to allow him to make water. Um, I actually kept it, since I don't know what being possessed does in regard to polluting things like that. He wouldn't want to hurt anyone by accidentally spreading a curse in the sewers."

Jing's brother snorted in indication that it was a little late to worry about Deng _accidentally_ hurting anyone. Deng's younger brother made a motion like he was going to leap up at the other man but his father laid his hand down on the boy's shoulder. Deng's grandmother continued to shake her head silently and rock slightly in her corner chair.

Mua gave the mother a single nod in satisfaction. "That was good sense. Hand it here." She stuck her open hand out to the side to receive it, not looking at the mother at all but rather continuing to inspect the space around Deng. When the unpleasant jar was finally presented Mua removed the lid and sniffed closely. "Hmm. He wasn't drunk yesterday." She held the jar out again. "You can toss this now. Dark spirits don't inhabit urine."

Ayika watched Mua's methods with curiosity. Her own grandmother had performed similar services as this house call in the Bed. However, Grandma Aka had always stressed the mundane personal explanations over everything else. If she thought that people were overly worried about spirits she would perform a quick cleansing ceremony to quite everyone's mind so she could sit them down and talk them through what was really going on. Grandma Aka had said that spirits were rare and spirits who cared enough about humans to cause any trouble were rarer than a fish jumping up the bank into your pot. But here Mua barely seemed to be paying the family members any mind. She hadn't asked Deng or Jing a single question. Instead, she was squinting her eyes and staring intently into blank corners of the room. Ayika felt uneasy too. She kept twisting back to glare at whoever in the watching families kept faintly whispering whenever the space grew silent. She could never catch them in the act, but she heard them at the edge of intelligibility.

Ayika felt goosebumps rise up and down her spine. Mua treating a fighting family like a recipe of alchemy to decipher was unnerving. The tiny metal ornaments on her costume made faint otherworldly noises as she shifted position. Her eyes passed over every person and object in the small apartment that she could see from the bedroom doorway.

Mua suddenly nodded and grunted in answer to some silent question she had asked herself. She turned and walked back out into the parlor and Ayika hurriedly scooted out of the way. Mua glided over to sad Jing in her chair. The bride's two brothers began to protectively shift closer but a sharp look from Mua froze them in place. Mua reached out and used her fingers to slightly lift up the girl's chin. The Water Tribe woman's naturally dark fingers lay against the kingdom native's unavoidable working-girl tan. They smoothly moved around the bruises. Jing flinched at first but then met Mua's eyes.

Mua said, "Is this the first time this has happened?"

Deng's mother began to speak but her husband put a hand on her arm to forestal her. Jing looked warily at Mua for a moment but then nodded. She then sniffed and her breath caught in a building sob as if that simple action had unlocked some new reservoir of emotion. Ayika could not help but feel anger rising up deep with her. She could not understand Mua's detachment from the scenario. Ayika felt like the first thing she would do would be to lay a few choice blows down on Deng while he was tied to the bed. That would bring a small equality of experience to this house.

Ayika was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that Mua's next question caught her by complete surprise. Mua turned to the patriarch. "When did you bury your father?"

It took Ayika a moment to understand what Mua could possibly be talking about. Then she remembered the little shrine in the the kitchen. The father stumbled in his response. "What?" The family was similarly confused. Deng's father looked around for more insight and finding none scratched at his chin. "Why...um, the last ceremony was three days ago? Priest put the disks on his eyes and-"

"Now hold on!" Jing's brother interjected. "You're not going to try and tell us that that bastard is just morning his grandfather! Sorrow doesn't excuse anything like this!"

Mua's glaring eyes flicked to the side. "I said no such thing." She stepped away from Jing. "Deng is indeed ill. I was called here to discern if there was any spiritual influence at work and Ah have determined that there is. But spirits don't get involved without an outside power and here that motivation's the restless ghost of the man's grandfather."

The room exploded into noise as everyone began talking at once, many of them rather angrily. Jing's family were accusing the others of bribing Mua to make up some excuse for Deng, Deng's mother was pleading with the celling in an attempt to perform an exorcism herself, and the grandmother was wailing for the soul of her departed husband that was apparently trapped and suffering. From his confinement in the other room Deng had heard this explanation.

"See! Jing, I told you it wasn't me! I'm so sorry, but we can fix this! They can get the spirit out of me and everything can go back how it was! Please!"

"Enough!" Mua roared suddenly and the apartment instantly fell into a dazed shock. She continued and there was a powerful anger in her voice, deep and cold. "There's a spirit at work here but that excuses nothing. Nothing! The spirits can influence the soul; they can't change it. No spirit can make ya do something that ya would never do. It's like being drunk. They can only influence emotions, enhance or dampen what we'd already be feeling." She turned back to the man tied on his bed. From her standing position she loomed above him. "Deng, ya wanted to hurt your wife. A drunkard's still responsible for his actions. Ya lost control, but that loss of control would've resulted in nothing if that seed of cruelty hadn't already been in your heart. You gave in to that desire. In all likelihood you'll do it again. Sprits are just one of many excuses out there."

Deng's younger brother seemed ready to say something angry but Mua waved her hand. Her eye's never left Deng's face. "I haven't any interest in speaking to someone like him, or to ya 'bout him. First we'll deal with cleansing this place. Then Jing can decide what she wants done with him. Till then you all just stay out of the way." The boy's mother put a hand on his shoulder as she turned to avert her face from the room where Deng was tied.

This was when the shaman work started.

...


	39. Exorcism

...

Mama Mua began to prepare the exorcism ritual. She moved around the room, pulling small mystic items from within her sleeves and behind her cloth belt. Ayika looked over at the two families squeezed into this apartment. No one was happy with the explanation Mua had delivered. The grandmother was repeating her murmurs over and over that her dead husband would never do something like that to his grandson. Ayika didn't think that Mua was planning on calming them. From the force with which Mua was setting down her instruments of the job on those surfaces Ayika suspected anything Mua said was likely to make things even worse.

Ayika remembered the lines Grandma Aka had used during all those house calls around the immigrant families of the Bed. So Ayika moved over to the old woman sitting in the corner. She told the woman that she was sure her husband loved his family. A ghost was half of a trapped soul that was stuck between this world and the spirit world, unable to pass through on to reincarnation. She explained that they brought trouble but they couldn't help it. It wasn't their fault that something went wrong with the death rituals. If this man's ghost was powerful enough to cause these problems, especially if it had enabled a spirit to cross over, then he must have been a very strong and noble man in life. The grandmother looked up at Ayika and might have been comforted.

Then one of Jing's brothers growled that it was a pity strength of character wasn't inherited and any shreds of peace in the apartment dissolved again. Deng's father moved to catch hold of his younger son who made a lunging movement out of anger for these insults against his brother. Ayika turned to look out the open wooden slats of the window as the shouting returned. If this was the mood in the city then the Masks did not need to do much to rile up discontent. People feeling this tense would be anxious to blame anything. Spirits and Islanders were ranked as just as worrisome in most people's minds. She hoped Mizumi was staying safe.

Ayika suddenly heard new sounds from the kitchen. The families' shouting had redoubled and now the father had joined, barking at Mama Mua who merely narrowed her eyes and carried on with what she was doing in that semi-separated room. Ayika moved nearer and saw Mua was dismantling the little shrine to the late grandfather. She snatched down the offerings and supplications around the dead man's written name held in a frame.

"Hold now, tribal!" the husband yelled. "You can't desecrate my father's shrine, no matter what you say about spirits or ghosts! Get away from that! We already paid for the temple priest to say his spells to calm his ghost and all that. How do I know you aren't just wanting us to pay twice?"

Beside Ayika the grandmother started to wail again, letting out unfocused prayers to the King of Kings. In the kitchen, Mua stood up straight and set down the components of the dismantled shrine. For a moment it looked like she was complying with the husband's orders. Then she raised her empty palms and spun around with a flowing motion. Shimmering ropes of water shot forth from the kitchen jug and wrapped around her in wide arcs, hanging in invisible air. The family members jumped back. Mama Mua now stood alone, her hands moving in slow circles as her body undulated slightly in arcane techniques. The strands of levitating water fragmented before her and reformed as they bulged and reformed in their constant arial motion. Ayika's heart was pounding in her ears. Suddenly her mind was back in the dark and the fog while this woman formed slicing blades from the mist. The instinctive terror all normal people held of benders had returned. Nia Mua could kill everyone in this room with nothing but her hands and her power.

"Listen." When Mua spoke she spoke gently, ignoring the fear around her. "You people have not been comfortin' a departed soul with this shrine. You've been empowerin' a ghost. The ceremony to unite the aspects of the dead's essence and allow it to move on and await rebirth failed. The disks on his eyes didn't work. Now the hungry ghost is loose and is feastin' on your offerings, upsettin' the border with the spirit world. That fragment'll barely remember that it's your grandfather, but it maintains all his spiritual strength from life. So his love of his grandson merely opened up a path for some spirit to grasp at the boy. Them that come over can be nice and benign, but this one isn't. And the ghost'll continue to draw the spirit world closer as long as it's free and provided with power. So we must act now to stop it."

With a wave of her arm the menacing strands of water flowed back into one stream and raced through the air back into the kitchen jug. All at once she was a normal woman again. However, the families remained fearful. Ayika did not blame them. Mua flipped the grandfather's framed name from the shrine face down on the table with a click. Then she reached out to adjust the incense holders she had set out in perpetration for the exorcism.

Mama Mua moved to light the incense sticks. Ayika noticed that she drew forth one of those boxes of the new fire-starters, "matches". Xinfei had been right, they were catching on. It looked as though Ayika had told the fire spirit a good tip.

Then Mua struck the little stick against an oven stone and it burst in a sudden spurt of flame much stronger than should have been produced. Mua almost dropped the match in surprise but somehow managed to hold on and inspected the flame burning on the end of the stick. There was no breeze in the room but the flame was dancing like it was trying to escape from its source. Ayika had seen that kind of motion before. It reminded her of the lanterns in the school the night Lizhen was killed. And the beginning of the fire in the warehouse. But why here? Why now? Were the Masks around? But the flames had not been dancing the night of the riot on the Fifth Hill and there had certainly been masks there. Was it spirits? But no, both times Mua had summoned spirits the flames had behaved normally even around the little man in the fire. Ayika pressed her hand to her temple. None of this made sense.

Mua was worried by this strange behavior of the fire, but no answers seemed to be coming to her so she quickly lit the incense sticks and then extinguished the strange match with a flick of her wrist. Fortunately, the fire went easily and the smoldering sticks gave their scented smoke without incident.

The threads of smoke wound their way upwards through the still air of the apartment. Like flying serpents they lazily twisted towards the ceiling until they caught scent of a draft and angled off to dissipate into the shadowed corners. Mua bowed to the the small ritual display she had constructed and then sank down to her knees on the floor. The shaman settled back on her heels as she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. This was one of the principle duties of a shaman; crossing over into the spirit world. She was going to meet the ghost in its new home on the border and to close the door it had opened through the veil.

Ayika tried to focus with her, though she had no training in such meditation. She tried to remember what it had felt like just before the spirit had appeared in Mua's fire but she thought that failed to capture the same sensation. How do you go about remembering a thought? The minutes passed and Mua's breathing remained slow and steady. Ayika knew Mua said that she herself could learn this talent, but no breakthroughs looked likely to happen today. Then she noticed something by its sudden absence. Something had changed and Ayika felt that there had been a faint presence all around that was now gone. Mua opened her eyes.

She breathed out and said, "Your father is at rest."

The younger brother began to mutter something to the nature of "That's it?" before his mother pinched him quiet. Jing's brothers began to nodded in annoyed agreement with the brother's sentiment until they caught themselves and remembered their quarrel. Mua rose to her feet.

"So... you're done?" the mother asked.

"No," said Mua. "I am not. Ayika, to me."

Ayika moved across the apartment to stand closer. Now that she was very near, Ayika could see Mua's face more clearly. The woman was shaken by something. Something she had seen in her meditation. But there was no time to ask because Ayika followed Mua the few paces into the bedroom where there was now a spirit perched on the bed-frame above Deng's head.

The strange transparent shape was the size of a young child but not of its shape. It had a sinuous body like an otter but the long limbs of a monkey and all up and down its pale translucent form were green stripes and blotches in seemingly random assortment. As Ayika watched it reached a few long fingers down from where it crouched sideways to gravity and gently stroked them through Deng's head. The man tied to the bed shivered slightly but otherwise showed no sign of noticing this and continued to look up at Mama Mua with confusion and frustration as she inspected him. At least he had learned the futility of talking back to her.

Mua spoke softly to Ayika. "Your grandmother knew the local formulas for confining a spirit? You remember them?"

"What? Um, yes?" She thought she did. Grandma Aka had been very sparse with her ceremonies but she had been consistent and this was a simple one. The intent was just to convince a spirit to stay along for long enough for a more complete ceremony to take place. Grandmother had used them like stalling tactics for when people needed time to cool off.

"Then go over into the next bedroom and get ready. Let's do this quickly."

For a moment Ayika stood there dumbly before her body caught up with what Mua had been saying. That pale green spirit was very distracting. Then Ayika nodded and quickly slid back out through the door way. She just had time to glimpse the spirit looking up in a careless way, as of it felt an impossible tickling which said the bumbling humans could now see it. The wife who had invited Mama Mua tried to stand in Ayika's way and ask her some question but Ayika managed to use the woman's own presence against her and slide by with a smooth deflection. As Ayika entered the other bedroom she wracked her memory for everything she had learned from her grandmother. For a containment ritual you needed to define an area. If you were not very familiar with the area then a line or circle was best. She hurriedly sent her mind back years to remember. For quick measures of reassurance Grandma Aka had usually splashed a line of salted water on the ground. That was the way she had learned back in the northern Tribes.

Ayika quickly grabbed a little clay cup from the kitchen counter and dipped it in the water jug before she ran back into the larger bedroom. She had just dipped her fingers in her sloshing cup when she remembered another instance. The times when Grandma Aka had actually looked serious as people complained of spirits. Things in the Earth Kingdom followed different traditions than the Water Tribes. The spirits of this city were used to the laws of earth. A line of brick got more attention than water. Aka had complained that the crumbled clay dust was a pain to clean up of the floorboards afterwards, even if little Ayika had been the one down on her knees. But how to...

She slipped a hand into the pocket of her cloth belt and grabbed a small smooth stone she had tucked there after picking it up on a whim. Old childhood habits did not always need to die. She dipped the stone in her cup of water and brought it down against the wooden floor. With spirits it was the ritual that mattered, not the inherit logic. And the wet stone could mark a damp line. A sheen of water placed down by a core of earth. That should be enough.

Ayika had just finished a scrawled circle when she heard Mua call out in the other room. The precise words were slightly obscured by the intervening wall but her force of personality resonated through. Up close her display must have been even more striking because a phantasmal green shape came hurtling out through that same intact wall. The spirit tumbled through the air, a mess of limbs and tails until it silently came to rest in the air above the middle of the circle. Ayika was breathing heavily as its squirming stopped and the spirit slowly unfolded its striped form to look up at her with dimly glowing eyes. Ayika did not really know what to say.

"Your friend is out of place." The spirit said with a sigh and more familiarity than was warranted. "And I will say that I expected a better welcome in your world, with all the trouble you have gone to."

"Welcome?" Ayika sputtered. She was starting to see why Grandma Aka had tried to avoid dealings with spirits. They were a presumptuous lot. "You were messing with that guy's head! You were making him crazy!"

"Crazy?" The spirit said this as if it did not understand the word. It was possible it did not. Grandma Aka had said that the spirit world operated under very different rules from the material. "There is one of his that wanted the boy looked after. I came over to keep him company. Really, if you don't want us to play here then why did you lot undermine your own allies?"

Ayika did not have time to answer before Mama Mua stormed in through the door and spat out "We humans still have spirit allies in this world. And you no longer have a place here. Be lucky I'm not sending you before Blind Dog Lord."

The green striped otter stretched its unnervingly thin monkey arms. Ayika thought it might be smiling. With that many sharp teeth it was hard to tell. "Some might rule this side. But they are going to be outnumbered. The lords and the golden are going to fall. Change is coming and a fever will always find its place. Remember, we are welcomed. After all, you sent us one of yours first."

Mua let out a curse and room echoed with a small sharp snap. The drying circle on the floor was now empty as two halves of a small clay tablet hit the floor where she dropped them. The spirit was gone. It was only the that Ayika realized she had failed her chance to interrogate this spirit about the Nine-Step-Shadow. If only Mua had given her a few more moments. The orange man in the fire had said that the shadow spirit was following someone. Ayika, Mizumi, and Mua had all been in the room. Mua hadn't recognized the name Nine-Step-Shadow and now Mua had prevented Ayika from asking this new spirit if it still sensed that shadow of death drawing nearer. If it had not then that would mean that both Ayika and Mua were safe. It would mean that Mizumi was the one who was going to...

Ayika could not bring herself to finish that thought.

Mua was breathing slightly heavily, although from exertion or excitement Ayika could not tell. "It is done." She gave the confused families a reassuring smile. However, Ayika could see a worried uncertainty behind those smooth lips. She addressed the husband. "You can resume offerings to your father in two days. Things should have died down a bit by then" Then she turned to look at bruised Jing with her brothers and Deng still tied to the bed. Mua made a pronouncement.

"Jing will return to her family for one week. Once they leave, Deng may be untied but will not contact her or any of her kind for that time. After that she may decide if she wants to see him and they can talk once more."

Deng's mother had tears in the corners of her eyes but she seemed content with the final result. After all, she had been the one to call on Mama Mua in the first place. She pressed a few coins into Mua's palm. To the shaman woman's credit she made no fake attempt to refuse payment, only quietly accepted them and slid the money to some hidden pocket within her clothes.

Ayika had an uncountable number of questions buzzing through her mind but she waited until they were outside on the street again to consider raising them.

"Something went wrong with the ghost ritual, didn't it? I could feel it."

Mua scowled and glared up and down the street, scrunching her smooth face into the expression that made her look much older. If she had been a Kingdoms native she would have spat on the stones. "Everything's wrong these days. Murderers are walkin' free and the sprits are coming far too close. The Shu are refusing to speak to me and instead all the lesser faint folk are crawling up through every drop and shadow. Even the fire's wrong." She saw Ayika's expression. "Yes, it is wrong. That was much harder than it should have been. The wall between worlds is damaged. And in the spirit world, when Ah found the old man's ghost there was...There was something else. Something much stronger out there. I think it's getting stronger."

Ayika followed behind the other woman as they made their way back down the alley to the boat waiting on the canal. Mua's theatrical display of bending magic when they first arrived must have worked since the craft looked unmolested by the local children. The battered apartments above with their sagging bamboo terraces and scaffolds pressed down above Ayika's head. At this moment she could feel on her heart the weighty hopelessness of the tasks she had set herself. The city was too big and now she had to contend with its spirit world reflection as well. She said, "At least you helped Jing get away from her husband."

Mua stopped as she was stepping onto the boat. She barked out a single harsh laugh, "Ha! She'll be back to him as soon as ya can blink."

"What?!"

"Didn't ya see in her eyes, girl? She's got love for him." Mua shook her head. "Love'll always bring ya back, even if ya know it'll hurt ya. It was in his eyes too, damn thing. Love and cruelty."

"But, but...After what you told her...After what he did how could she... What if he-?"

Mua shrugged. "He might. Probably will. But love's a stupid thing. It's painful and destructive and rarely makes the right decision. All ya can do is hope the love dies before they tear each other apart." There was a bitterness dripping off of every syllable she spoke. Bitterness and what sounded like experience.

"No." Ayika was sure of this one word even if she was confident about nothing else. "No, that's not what love is." She knew that she had no experience in love. No man had even caught her eye in the burning way her mother had promised they would. But she knew in her heart that what she had yet to find was not this dark and twisting force that Mua described. It just wasn't. It was trust and adventure and longing and comfort. It was someone who... she shook her head to settle her thoughts. It was something else.

Mua looked back at the apprentice she'd found herself with. She gave the slightest smile that for once was touched by something other than sardonic bitterness. Something that might have been wistfulness. "Maybe. But it's powerful and all power's easily darkened. Think of the unquiet ghosts. It's their love of life that brings them to linger and reach back into our world. The more powerful a personality the more disruptive spirits are drawn in. And that power twists people 'round them. As if this city needs more twisting. We're goin' to see a lot more of cases like this unless we stop Chen's killer and whatever their conspiracy's doing. May he forgive me."

It only took Ayika a moment to realize Mua was not praying for the murderer to forgive her. Whatever was disrupting the city's connection with spirit world had started around the time of Lizhen's death. The professor's soul and ghost might still be trapped and separated just like that family's grandfather. Ayika thought of the sensations she had felt at Lizhen's funeral, the feeling of incompletion. Mizumi and Lili hadn't been back to the school for days, but all the other students might still be affected by a tear in the spirit world. Even the other servant girls who'd been unkind to Ayika didn't deserve the kind of spirit possession that an unquiet ghost might bring on. Unfortunately, Ayika doubted Headmaster Gang would consent to allow someone like Mama Mua inside the grounds to check one way or the other.

Mua's canal boat slid across the dirty water between the uneven blocks of ancient apartments. Ayika didn't look back at the shaman. Down in Kuang Harbor she'd heard lately of people falling ill and acting strangely. There'd been even more stories about such things happening in the Lower Ring. Ayika had discounted the complaints of Mrs Anyakya's workers as just the effect of nerves and she had claimed to quiet the spirits that plagued them. She'd lied to them. That was before she had ever seen her first spirit but it was still unforgivable. She'd pretended to repel spirits when she had done nothing. She'd made up spells to appease her boss and earn herself some quick respite from a strange duty.

The spirit in the fire had said that the border between worlds was weakening around the city and all anyone could offer was empty ritual. They needed to find who was doing this and stop them. That might be the key to removing the Masks' power. And maybe that would also prevent that horror the Nine-Step-Shadow foretold. Because that spirit was still back there waiting to take its next step.

Ayika quickly twisted around to look behind the boat but no one was watching their passing through the artificial gorges of the city. All the shadows she saw were empty.

...


	40. Invitation

...

Mizumi leaned back against the cushioned windowseat as she looked out at the black tiles of the Exclusion roofs and on to the harbor town beyond. Bright sunlight squeezed past the eaves above and left the bottom half of her face reflected in the glass. Such clear panes were still a rare thing to see here in the Earth Kingdom, although the Inner Ring which she was not permitted to visit likely had no shortage. Those hereditary nobles could afford to buy glass directly from the Nation. A book lay forgotten in Mizumi's hands. Still staring out the window, she looked down from this highest tower of her family mansion to the Exclusion's moat of canals and the dark native roofs that stretched out beyond. If she turned to the other window and peered between similar towers of familiar Fire Nation architecture she could see the city wall soaring up high and bright in the sunlight.

Somewhere out there were people attacking anyone who was friendly with her race. Somewhere out there were spirits. Mizumi did not know which thought was more frightening. She and her family lived here, sequestered on a small patch of land in a hostile town trapped between the wall that contained the city and the even larger wall that kept out the world.

Her eyes flicked away from the glass and over to a small end table. There was a letter on it. Lili's message had come by way of Xinfei by way of Ayika and so carried about it invisible sedimentary layers of clashing opinions. Lili had experienced some sort of encounter with Trade Representative Tailang that had grabbed that girl's suspicion. Apparently Tailang had some history with Teacher Lizhen long ago, although Xinfei thought that could be pure conjecture. But then again, Ayika pointed out that Mama Mua had mentioned something about that as well when she was talking about Erliao. At least Mizumi could promise to look into that thin connection, even if she doubted it would lead to much. The representative was frequently at this house and there was also another convenient excuse coming up soon. Mizumi tapped her fingernail on her chair. In fact she had said something to Ayika a while ago that could become relevant. A promised invitation of sorts.

There was the sound of someone climbing up the narrow stairs behind her. Mizumi turned her gaze back down to the book she had been vainly trying to read. Those footsteps likely belonged to a household servant trudging up to one of the storerooms that for necessary reasons of space were located just under the mansion's multileveled roofs. There was no need to make the poor person's task any more onerous by forcing the enacting of the manners required for meeting eyes with the lady of the house.

The book's words swam on the page. Mizumi was thinking too much in the language of the Kingdom these days. Her thoughts flew outside to where Ayika strode along those dangerous streets. Word was that though the city government had been frightened by the Masks' violent display on the Fifth Hill, among the common people the conservatives were still gaining support for their isolationist agenda. Each night several shops carrying goods from the Nation were smashed or vandalized. In the Lower Ring the Ceramics Guild earthbenders and their anti-trade calls were growing in influence, especially among those skilled artisans who felt their livelihoods were threatened by superior manufacturing techniques from the Nation. Even the city's temples were taking up the cry against outside influence and for once citizens were starting to listen to the priests again.

The footsteps had stopped. Mizumi looked up and then thrust her book down on the seat beside her in surprise. She popped up off her seat, jolted back into her native language.

"Grandfather!"

The old man standing at the top of the stairs twisted his mouth in an ironic grin. "Were you expecting someone else? I can go fetch someone if I'm too much of a disappointment." His pointed grey beard wiggled as he spoke.

Mizumi could not help rolling her eyes as she smiled. "You know that's not what I meant. I just know that Doctor Izu asked you to not climb so many stairs. Remember your knees."

"Oh damn my knees, damn the doctor and damn seven other things too. I'm old, things hurt, and that's the way of it. Time was I had to run up to my watch-post six times a night, rain or shine or the corporal would set my feet on fire. Plus, any doctor who says booze is unhealthy doesn't know a damn thing. What's a man to drink, I ask you? Water? That will kill you if you don't chase it with something."

Mizumi smiled. Her grandfather had retired from the military before the end of the war, and taken that salary, some international contacts, and some questionably acquired luxury goods to go on and establish the seed for the international shipping company that his son now headed. However, he was still a soldier at heart. And that meant he knew what is felt like to have people wanting him dead.

She took a breath. She wanted so badly to bare her heart but there was still only so much she could tell him about all this. "Grandfather? There...I keep hearing about local people threatening us. Threatening those from the Nation I mean. They're projecting all their troubles in the city onto us. And now they're blaming us for fires breaking out in the Lower Ring and rumors of sickness. And spirits..." Mizumi cut herself off.

Her grandfather grunted as he slowly lowered himself down into a chair near the window. "If I remember my schooling right, these people do things like that because their earth culture is against innovation and enslaves the people through reliance on tradition." He paused. "Or maybe that was the tribals? No, the tribals were superstitious and mystical instead of logical and analytical like the good people of the Nation." He shook his head. "It's so hard to keep track of what we are supposed to believe."

Mizumi was going to ask about how he had dealt with the urban unrest back home after the Fire Lord's coup. This pervasive unease in the streets had to share some common aspects. But the words died in her mouth as she remembered the furious crowd outside Lili Gaoli's house. She remembered the fire in the night. "How can they hate us that much?" She was not even looking at him, instead blankly addressing the view out the window.

Her grandfather looked at her sweetly. He breathed heavily as he leaned himself further back into his chair. "You were born after the war, little Mizi. You children of peace are the most beautiful thing I have seen in my life." Then he cleared his throat and he was the same gruff old soldier again. "People will always find ways to hate each other and when it comes to this, well the grooves of hatred between our nations have been worn down for a hundred years. It's easy enough to fall back in."

"But they don't even understand the issues they are angry about! There are people out there tricking the citizens for their own gain!"

"Ha! Well, the Kingdomers are nothing if not stubborn. But all that's not your job to worry about. Let Amantza Tailang worry about politics and Sage Huitzlan worry about the gods and spirits. Hey, in a week or so we should have a new city god if the ceremonies keep going well. That's the next best thing to having the Fire Lord stop by and bless the place. Old Naruhama was a good guy, strong firebender. He'll do right by us in the spirit world."

Mizumi remembered what Mama Mua had said about the spirit world. She was not sure even an Exclusion city-god would be able to help if the gods of Ba Sing Se were powerless to stop the growing power of the Masks and whatever strange influence they were bringing. Ayika had said that unquiet ghosts were popping up in the Lower Ring. Possibly elsewhere too, there was no way of knowing. And Mizumi had heard her father talking about rumors of sickness in the city and the parts of the Town near to it. Something was failing about the standard rituals in this city. Just as the politics were failing. The mob and the curse were both coming for her and her family.

She had always trusted her grandfather. With her father busy abroad so much grandfather had cared for her. He had taught her confidence and trained her in self defense. Surely she could trust him now. Maybe even about Ayika. "Grandfather, I..."

Her head twitched to the side as another set of footsteps came up the wooden stairs. It was the butler and he had a letter to present. At first Mizumi thought it must be another letter from Lili. She only knew a few people in this country who she was friendly with enough to warrant a letter. Ayika was brilliant but rather bereft of schooling. Since Mizumi was not entirely confident in the Water Tribe woman's ability to write an entire letter that left only Lili Gaoli. But she was wrong. The envelope was not addressed to Mizumi Miohuito but rather to the entire Miohuito household. It was an invitation and the butler presented it to Mizumi's grandfather as the head of household, however, the old man just waved it off and directed the servant over to Mizumi.

Mizumi's grandfather had recognized the letter's format and gave her a gesture of his head as she read it. "Well? Who's inviting us where?"

Mizumi blinked in surprise and read the name twice to make sure. "Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression Chao Erliao invites us to his party recognizing the Festival of Veils."

Grandfather mimed spitting. "The nerve of that guy. Our loudest enemy invites us to some stupid local festival. At least that gives us a good excuse to not go. Out of curiosity where is it?"

"At his family home in the Inner Ring. He mentioned this party to my father before. That night outside the Gaolis'." Mizumi said this softly as thoughts and possibilities began to flit into her mind.

"All the worse. Two hours ride on their primitive proto-trains! Even without my knees there's no way you'd ever see me go behind that many walls. I'd never be able to convince myself they'd let me out again. And they'd all be chattering in the Earth Kingdom language. Nope, not for me."

Mizumi had no love for Erliao but there were a lot of questions around him. He had known the old teacher Lizhen very well. Mua said that the minister and the professor had been friends while Lizhen was doing his research of Fire Nation ritual customs with Ambassador Naruhuama and Fire Sage Huitzlan. And Lili's letter had confirmed Lizhen and Erliao had also shared some further connection that everyone from Tailang to Mama Mua seemed to be aware of but no one would explain. It seemed tied to whatever cued the divergence in their politics. Maybe it was also tied to Lizhen's death. Perhaps some closer investigation was warranted.

The invitation said that 'you and your friends' were invited. They were allowed to bring guests; a cocky gesture. Either Erliao was confident that they would not accept this invitation or his household was amply prepared to entertain the entire Exclusion if they chose to arrive. Mizumi had never seen inside the Inner Ring. Of course her father would never let her go all the way through the city. Not after the stunt she had pulled the night of the riot, even if she had pinned most of the blame on Lili's "frantic native nerves". But still it was nice to think of attending an elegant foreign party. Especially on a holiday when everyone would be in disguise. One could bring any sort of guest at all. She looked back out the window at the city wall in the distance.

...

The sun was high beside the moon and Ayika walked beside Mizumi on the stone-paved street as the light beat down from the sky to warm her back. Mizumi was saying something but for some reason Ayika could not make out her words over the general uncertain noise of the city. She leaned in closer, almost pressing against her friend but still she could not pick out the individual words. Still, this walk was pleasant.

The others were there too. Xinfei and Lili were off to the side and Xiaobao was walking before them. Someone had started a silly game where they tried to only step on the cracks between the paving stones. It was ridiculous but Mizumi was laughing as she caught hold of Ayika's arm to steady her balance. None of the players paid any mind as the web of cracks detached from the ground and floated up into the air carrying the five of them along.

Something turned in Ayika's stomach. This new development was dangerous even if she could not articulate why. Her thoughts felt fuzzy. They were now standing on a lattice of black lines floating three stories above the street. Her friends still danced and skipped along their chosen routes with no mind to the drop. They didn't fear that they might fall. However, Ayika was frozen and she felt the impossible cracks press into the soles of her feet like the thin cables of a high wire act.

Mizumi grabbed Ayika's hand as she looked back at her, urging her on with a smile. But Ayika could not bring herself to move from her spot in the air. She was paralyzed by an intense and unbearable fear. Then Mizumi's smile looked sad and her lips moved in the pattern of some silent word. She let go of Ayika's hand and walked backwards down this dirt floored alley in a shadowed canyon of towering buildings.

Ayika stood in the shadows of the dark alley that now surrounded her and screamed out at Mizumi to be careful, to come back to her. There was a terrible danger drawing nearer.

"She'll come back. That is what you have to worry about."

Mama Mua was standing beside Ayika. In her hands the shaman held a long knife by the blade and she slowly pressed the point against her own chest. Blood ran down between her fingers and she smiled. All this Ayika saw in the flickering light of the flames.

All around her the city burned. Flames licked and danced across the roofs as fire burst forth from every window. The clouds and smoke in the sky reflected the orange light, taking on the appearance of a pot of boiling metal upended above their heads. None of the hundreds of pedestrians around them at this broad crossroads seemed to notice the fires. Ayika called out again, begging Mizumi to come back, to be safe. But Mizumi still stayed ten paces away.

A male voice spoke behind her. "Open eyes are scary, aren't they? And unfortunately the worse pain is yet to come. But don't worry. When the time comes I will take the pain away from you."

Ayika spun and saw two shadowed black figures behind her. Or maybe it was the same figure twice because with a blink they were gone. Yet she knew he or they was never really gone.

She turned in place, yelling out for someone to help fight the fires that were devouring the city, but none of the passers by paid her any mind. They didn't even notice the roaring inferno. In fact many of them were not even people but were monsters wearing costumes with human faces, masquerading as people for some celebration.

As Ayika gaped at the swirling strangeness around her she noticed something else. The fires were massive but they were not everywhere at once. They moved around in a shifting ring of destruction that was nevertheless expanding all the time. Down a street Ayika caught a glimpse of a lone running figure. The person held something in its hands that was constantly disgorging waves of fire but this destruction did not seem to be the runner's intent. They even tried to bury the fire-source but it did not work. The power still burst forth no matter how it was hidden. The runner had a shape clinging to its back, egging it on, keeping it from rest. The shape had claws and they were sharp.

Important men stood in the city square beside Ayika, forming a long line. Each man reached behind himself to grab a shard of darkness again and again, one after another. They didn't see that these shards destroyed everyone they touched. Or possibly they did not care. They each had their own plans. Ayika faced the last man in the rear of the line and she saw that he smiled. He knew what he was doing as he stood in that vast shadow behind him.

Ayika looked up and saw that the shadow was cast by a towering giant, an old man wearing a crown of black glass, a man with no face. She recognized him from another dream and with a jolt to her core Ayika suddenly knew that she was in a dream. But she did not awake. She remained in this confusing mess of imagination and symbolism though great effort in obedience to some sense she did not understand. The faceless giant above the burning city turned his sightless head down to meet her gaze. He had no mouth but his voice boomed out over the endless blaze and the grasping men and the monsters in human masks.

"FIND ME. STOP ME. BURN ME."

Then ten thousand clawing skeletal arms burst forth from his robes to rip the city apart as the giant man wailed in despair.

Ayika awoke in the dark without a noise. At her side on the other half of the thin mattress her little brother Oakas breathed softly in his sleep. In their little corner alcove Grandma Aka's wooden idols looked out with carved eyes rimmed with fish teeth. Ayika didn't make a noise as she lay there. She was used to these dreams by now. She had them every night.

...

Inspector Ta Yang of the Royal Agency for the Enforcement of Public Safety looked back at the stack of documents on his desk. It was a full collection of the last week's worth of incident reports from his own Radial Sector Twenty-seven. To the side of that pile were two more, hailing from cooperative clerks in Sectors Twenty-six and Twenty-eight. All this information and still he knew nothing.

A cool breath of air snuck into the office through a crack in the window frame and Inspector Yang frowned. This district station had not been constructed to serve its current purpose. The building was an old Tax Station in the Middle Ring and in many ways it was perfect for an office of the Agency for Public Safety. Its dignified constriction and venerable age projected governmental authority. Its thick stone walls could protect classified documents just as well as they had protected gathered revenue and its placement along the Radial Tram Line was invaluable for dispatching agents. However, it had windows.

His Glorious Majesty Kui, the King of Kings of Earth Under Heaven had ordered years ago that the newly formed Agency must locate its offices in unfortified aboveground positions. The stated intent was to signal a final break from the shadowed legacy of the old Dai Li Cultural Authority by literally dragging them into the light. The unstated reason was understood just as well. Not even two decades ago many of the Dai Li had participated in a treasonous coup against the King. Kings are slow to forgive. If the agency pressing their own throats against a sword-blade was what it took to earn back that trust then that is what the newly renamed organization must do. Even if it left them uncomfortably exposed.

Though the Agency for Public Safety was granted fewer liberties than the old Dai Li the expectations towards it were the same. They were to protect the stability of the city. And Inspector Yang was failing. In the aftermath of the riot on the Fifth Hill hundreds of arrests had been made. But it was clear that none of those unfortunate enough to be snatched off the street could be considered organizers. As part of a show of force, Yang's agents had been forced to round up many antigovernment offenders who they had for years carefully tended as reliable sources of information. Instead of knowing more Yang now knew less and still requests came down from the ministers of the Inner Ring. Requests rooted in petty politics and personal vendettas that hamstrung any effective investigation.

Yang shifted one of the papers on his desk to reveal another. This report mentioned masks. Criminals wearing masks was hardly surprising but this was not the first time he had heard these subtle unwritten hints between the columns of characters. This was superstitious talk from those who should know better. Talk once again of a secret society more effective than the hundred others that festered in the dark bars and gambling dens of Inspector Yang's sector.

Someone was directing this turmoil. He wondered if the statistically anomalous rash of fires in the Lower Ring was connected. Of course, it was the end of a dry summer and the first brush of autumn cold would mean people intentionally lighting their hearths and sometimes unintentionally lighting their houses. Even in Ba Sing Se not everything was a conspiracy. Still...

There was a soft sound to his right and Yang was instantly prepared to kill. Then he relaxed and declined to move from his chair. He recognized the man who was now standing on the third floor windowsill of the office. Instead, Yang flicked his eyes back to his desk and recovered the suspicious report about masks. He decided to open conversation with a compliment. "You still land very lightly." Of course he did. Dai Li training never faded.

Douli Ma'er looked down from his perch in the window as he controlled the urge to let his breathing elevate after his drop from the sky. Now that his feet were braced against the stone window-frame, the stones he had shot forth out of this robes a moment ago to cancel out his falling momentum smoothly halted below at the command of his earthbending gesture and rose back up just before they smashed against the ground. This technique of arresting one's fall without making noise had been more tiring than he remembered. He was growing older.

Yang began to speak without looking up. "Pensioner Douli Ma'er, it is pleasant to see you. Please tell us the reason for which you chose our window as your ingress point." A Dai Li, that is to say an Agent for Public Safety, spoke not for themselves but on behalf of the government. Yang's use of plural was an irritatingly exact interpretation of that doctrine.

Ma'er ignored this idiosyncrasy as he always had before. He said, "I have information about those responsible for the destruction three nights ago."

Yang drew forth a single sheet of paper from within one of the piles. The connection was easy enough to make, "Judging from this report on the dismantlement of the upper floors of the house of a Xiangme Han lately of the Fifth Hill district one responsible party is likely yourself. We have accounted for all our agents with such training. It is fortunate that the family was not at home. You are slow in coming to us."

Ma'er made a swift motion and a wooden object clattered across Yang's desk. It was a mask, painted gold and blue. The face rose in the front like the beak of a bird. Yang gently picked it up and began to examine it. There were no obvious marks signaling the artist or manufacturer. He turned it over and began to look at the inside surface. It was covered with painted script, stylized to the point of illegibility.

"I would keep that away from your face," Ma'er said from across the room. "I am not sure it's as simple to trigger as putting it on but this is not the place and you are not the one to test it. There is magic going on with those, something I do not recognize."

Inspector Yang did not raise a skeptical eyebrow. There was no need. Nor did he feel any compulsion to do something as foolish as to wear what could potentially be evidence of a treasonous conspiracy. He set the mask down and pushed it aside. Generally magic was what the uneducated called what they did not understand. Some even called bending a type of magic. But the reports about security forces clashing with certain members powerful of the mob to uncertain results had indeed been troubling. Seeking information was never inadvisable. It was his duty.

"Whatever you have come to say, it would be best for you to say it now."

Ma'er frowned. He did not particularly like men of Yang's disposition, but he had still chosen to come. Someone in power had to be warned.

He began to lay out what he knew. "This conservative society that organized the march on the Middle Ring is an agglomeration of nationalist groups. The student nationalists are still peripherally involved but now instead of directing the discussion they're low ranking order-takers. The leadership is called the Initiated, it's they that wear those masks. The date of the murder of former Royal University Professor Chen Lizhen somehow signaled a transformation in their tactics from influencing public dialogue to inciting violence. Perhaps this was the manifested aftermath of a shakeup in their organizational structure I believe occurred two weeks previously. This change in tactics has coincided with an increase in whatever power is imparted by those inscribed masks. That I discovered by personal experience." He took a breath as he felt a sympathetic twinge in the shoulder he had injured. "I also have reason to believe that these 'Masks' might be somehow involved with the spirit world."

Inspector Yang did not even raise an eyebrow at this speech. "Is that it? None of that is more than inference. You have not identified any suspects in this group's leadership?"

Ma'er resisted the urge to pace in frustration. "No. The masks are distributed from a central source and someone is calling the shots but I have not been able to track the chain of command. There is one thing. I gave another of these masks to Chen Lizhen on the day of his murder. He recognized it. What he knew he said he wouldn't tell me until he could confirm the seemingly impossible implication that arose. I don't know what he meant. He never spoke to me again and the killer took back that mask. There was something about that particular mask that invited a stronger reaction in their organization than the loss of the ones I had previously taken." Ma'er was now looking off in thought, not focusing on the man in front of him.

Inspector Yang was far too accustomed to obedience to tolerate these ramblings. "So, all your illegal private interferences have come to nothing. In fact, you may have contributed to the death of the disgraced professor." He placed his hands flat on the desk. "The current situation being what it is we can no longer turn a blind eye to your activities. You must turn over all your information that will lead to the capture of these anti-government forces. We have been tearing the Lower Ring apart looking for the organizers of the march on the Fifth Hill but nothing has been found. In fact, in several of the raid sites it appeared someone had been there before us. Violently. Someone with power and advance knowledge of our plans." His voice grew dark.

Ma'er sputtered, "What? You can't possibly think that I-"

Yang snapped back in reply. "Of course not. No retiree fifteen years out of the service would be able to intercept our communications. The leak obviously came from somewhere among our superiors. The politics is thick here. And besides, the evidence of violence our agents gathered was not indicative of earthbending. Metal hinges were ripped off wooden doors." Now it was Yang's turn to look contemplative. "We have heard of a new school of earthbending originating in the United Republic that teaches the manipulation of metal. We have contacted intelligence assets there to obtain a thorough description of the indicative signs to see if these recent incidents match. But whoever the perpetrating parties are their capture is guaranteed. However, a quick resolution is not. To that end you must reveal your source to us. It is obvious you have a contact within the cultist organization."

Ma'er did not like the cool and calm tone Inspector Yang was using to discuss this issue. "Do not underestimate the mask-wearers. Don't send any agents out alone. You have not tangled with these people personally like I have so-"

"You are avoiding our command. The agency was content to back off its surveillance of the student nationalist groups when you promised to take a special interest, off the books. Frankly, those boys had only gained our attention at all as a political favor promised by someone in the ministry so we were glad to not waste any more resources. We trusted that a Dai Li would promptly inform us if any new information prompted a reassessment of their threat. But you did not."

"Yang, this is far beyond some kids playing at politics. As soon as I was sure I-"

"Do not speak to me like I'm an idiot!" Inspector Yang's outburst was sudden and violent. But when the last syllable passed his lips the rage passed as well and his face was as impassive as always. "Your dwelling was searched this mourning. The contents of your concealed room are currently in evidence awaiting further analysis but it is clear you lost control of this situation long ago. You saw that the nationalists received a powerful financier months ago. You saw a change in their leadership and strategies four weeks ago. You even saw sign of the beginning of these supposed forays into the occult. But you did not report it. You tried to conduct the entire investigation yourself. And as a result you lost your assistant, Tian Chang of Red Dye Road in Hero Zhang square quarter of the Lower Ring. We can no longer allow you to continue these pretensions of retained competence."

Ma'er's powerful shoulders sagged. He could not even muster up surprise that Yang knew about Tian disappearance. The last Ma'er had ever heard of him was from that Tribal girl who supposedly saw him at his raid on the Masks turned warehouse fire. Ma'er sagged slightly. Nothing weakens a man like knowing he's been in the wrong.

"Please. The boy Tian is still out there somewhere. I've been trying to find him. His family..." Ma'er stopped. Appeals to sentimentality would not do any good within these walls. "I believe he may have information that could be devastating to the nationalist society. Only that could explain his level of fear and his refusal to even contact me. Those incidents of break-ins in the Lower Ring? The Masks are searching for someone. Tian must fear reprisal. During his infiltration of the organization he somehow got wind of the plan to murder Chen Lizhen. He learned something important that night. Something important enough to scare him into hiding. Please find him."

"The Agency for the Enforcement of Public Safety is not in the business of performing favors. And you have no credit here." Yang leaned forward against his desk. "But you might be informed as to the relevant results of our investigation. After you turn over the student dissenters you have been protecting. You did them kindness while you could. The time for that kindness is now over. Blood must be paid for the riot on the Fifth Hill."

Ma'er matched Inspector Yang's stare. This was the first time the agent had met his eyes since he had entered the man's office. To expose the hiding spot of the student student nationalists to this man would be cruel. Cruelty in the name of necessity. It is what the great Long Feng would have done.

Ma'er nodded. May the Builder King protect those boys. No one else was now.

...


	41. Roles

...

Mrs Anyakya of Mrs Anyakya's Super Best Tribal Wash was a supremely mercantile woman and not given to indulging most cultural institutions. However, even she had to bow down before the Festival of Veils. That holiday had long since began to throw out its creeping tendrils into neighboring calendar days as people took time off to prepare for the celebrations. By the morning before its commencement, shops were already closing and long strings trailing colored paper flags stamped with spirit faces fluttered over the streets like some festive spider of enormous size was spinning webs to catch the city whole. Ayika saw this transformation through the open window of the room in the front of the laundry shop. Luckily the boss had been forced by threat of a generalized worker uprising to give them half of the day off even though the festival did not properly start until nightfall.

As she sat on her rickety stool behind the front counter awaiting that time, Ayika practiced focusing her mind on the energy of spirits as Mama Mua had passingly explained her. Mua was stingy with her advice on the ways of the spirit world. That had to be the cause of her difficulties; that or Ayika's own incompetence. No. She shook her head to clear away that thought and re-find her center. She had been trying to recapture the sensation she had noticed on the nights of Lizhen's death and the warehouse fire. Somehow the dancing flames and the shiver up her back had to be connected to the power of the Masks. They were doing something involving spirits. Lizhen had known what it was and they had killed him for it. But Mua was distracted by her hatred of Erliao, both Lili and Mizumi barely believed in spirits, and since Ayika had not managed to attract a single spirit on her own she to admit that her own intuition might not rate for much when it came to shamanistic meditation. She was stuck without a lead.

"Dozing on the job?"

Ayika opened her eyes with a guilty start. Mrs Anyakya was across the counter, staring at her in a rather unappreciative manner.

"No, mam! Not at all. I was just...thinking about things. Sorry, I didn't hear the front door open." Her hands reflexively lowered to pull down on her uniform dress even though it did not ride up nearly as much anymore. This was around the right time for one of Anyakya's workplace inspections but Ayika had not heard her come in the building. She looked over to the front of the show and saw that the wooden clacker was still in place above the door.

Anyakya followed her eyes. "Didn't come in the front. Got off a boat on the backside. But don't let that excuse you. You will not let the customers see you with closed eyes. I hired you to calm the fretting chits with the illusion of on-staff spiritualism help so I won't say I mind that you've been apprenticing yourself to that Mua broad in your off time but don't let it be affecting your work here. You hear me?"

"Clear as rain, mam."

Ayika really was resolved to demonstrate her dedication and competence but the world chose that moment for Mizumi's servant Fong to enter the shop. He had a weary expression on his face as his eyes quickly found Ayika hopping up from her stool. Even before she could begin the required speech he interrupted:

"My employer has sent me here on an errand relating to the Festival of Veils. There will be costumes to be cleaned that need to be be treated differently from normal clothes. You are to be given special instructions at the house so that your establishment will be prepared to receive those articles after the festival and there will be no risk of damaging them. An increased per-item cost is acceptable."

Anyakya clucked her tongue from the corner of the shop which caused Fong to give a slight start that he quickly covered with even more glowering. Anyakya said, "And let me guess, my counter girl's the one who has to be going and it must be now when I'm already closing in just a bit?" Fong gave no reply though he looked as if he had a great deal to say about the sense his orders.

Ayika began to form a coherent excuse in her head. She'd asked Mizumi not to pull this stunt again so if she was doing so there must be a good and urgent reason. "Um, Mrs..."

Mrs Anyakya continued to address Fong. "She'll be right with you in a second."

Ayika blinked but she supposed this accommodating attitude was to be expected. Mizumi was already overpaying for laundry services by quite a considerable amount. Ayika had just scooted around the counter when Anyakya swept in close and tugged Ayika in by her collar. From Fong's perspective it might look like she was straightening the uniform but it was rather more forceful than that. Anyakya talked out of the corner of her smiling mouth as Ayika quietly choked.

"Now tell me, is that Lord Miohuito taking any liberties? That's not what I am charging him for."

It took a moment for Ayika to process the assumption. When she did her mouth worked up and down as she stammered her defense. "Oh! Oh, no! I never..."

Anyakya continued in her businesslike tone as if she was tallying rice. "If he is and you're letting him, tell me so I can tack on an appropriate surcharge. Just make sure to do it in a way that won't result in pregnancies. I can't afford to keep swapping out workers."

Ayika was sure she had never been more mortified. "No!" She whispered back. "How could... Mister Miohuito wasn't even there last time! It's just the daughter who asked for me."

Anyakya shrugged indicating it was all the same to her. "Hmm, I guess that's a good way as any to avoid getting pregnant. Well, whatever or whoever keep it up but be smart"

Ayika sputtered with dumb surprise while trying to deny this new embarrassing accusation but Anyakya did not seem to care. Ayika felt like trying to knock herself out by slamming her own head against the counter. At least she managed to convince her boss that if she was to wear the mortifying counter girl uniform outside again she might rip it so she was afforded the opportunity to change into her street clothes. However, when she reemerged from the back of the shop Fong was still waiting and in a flash Anyakya was pushing her out the front door with a slap on the bottom. Ayika made her way out through the increasingly festive town towards the foreign quarter, trailing behind the Miohuito household man. Soon enough they were crossing the Bridge of Fire to the looming towers of the Exclusion.

If the Exclusion was joining the city in decorating for the Festival of Veils Ayika could not tell. On any normal day these narrow paved roads between the soaring spires connected by red walkways were clean and festooned with colorful signs and lanterns like the City might do for a major holiday. Today, as always, there was laughter and light spilling out of a large building by the bridge but were those silk wrapped celebrants honoring the special occasion or just their fiery foreign blood? A woman draped in gossamer robes of pale red fastened with twinkling gold ornaments leaned out of an upstairs window and waved at Ayika below as she laughed. Then a black haired man came up behind her and she turned around with a smile to follow him back in.

Despite the growing political tensions throughout the city, many of the people Ayika and Fong passed on the Exclusion street were not foreigners but rather natives like her. Then Ayika frowned as she realized how she had just classified herself. All throughout the city people were breaking up into sides. It was foreign against local. Earth race against Fire. Where did she stand in that? Half the time the other city citizens were 'us' to her, the other half they were 'them'. From their perspective she knew she would always be a 'them'. But this was the only home she had ever known. Who else could she be? These thoughts only made her tired and Ayika knew there were no answers.

Before she had too long to muddle through those considerations they'd arrived at the strangely diminutive street entrance of the Miohuito mansion. Now that she knew what to look for, Ayika could look above and past the street-side shops to pick out the mansion's upper stories and towers looming up behind them, nearer the canal at the island's edge. From the outside the foreignness of the mansion architecture stood out even more. Red painted wood and black metal ornaments stood out prominently. These people were from far away. Ayika wondered what other strange artifacts of culture the Islanders had brought with them. Did their spirits come too?

Fong had barely ushered her inside the front entrance under his perpetually disapproving gaze when a welcome voice shook Ayika out of her revery.

"Ayika! You are here! It is great to see you!"

Mizumi was waiting in the entry foyer and broke into a grin as she saw Ayika. From the uncomfortable expressions of the servant waiting to do his duty of receiving guests it was not normal for the lady of the house to be lingering here like that. Particularly not to welcome a poor tribal girl. Ayika had been to this house a few times by now but she still couldn't convince Mizumi to let her come in through the servant's entrance on the other side of the building by the carriage garage. But when she saw Mizumi's smile her weak objections fled from her mind.

Mizumi anxiously shifted in place as the servant lay out house slippers to replace Ayika's street-shoes. After a few seconds she grew tired of waiting.

"It is good that you could come quickly. I am sorry there is a short time now, but my father had been very vague about when the start would be and I made incorrect assumptions. Well, it can also be said that I did not tell him what my plan was but that hardly-"

"Um, Mizumi?" Ayika looked up as she slid her feet into the offered slippers. "Slow down. What are you talking about? You knew that I was going to be off at noon anyway, why make Fong get me now? Sorry, Fong."

Fong did not even grunt in reply.

Mizumi continued unimpeded. "Ah, yes. That is right. Why you are here. Well, you are learning matters of the spirits with that Mama Mua. I thought so you would be interested in attending a ceremony of the Nation. When we attended Lizhen's funeral together I remember I had said I wished I could have invited you to Ambassador Naruhama's funeral. Now I have realized I can take you to one of his deification ceremonies." Here Mizumi's confidence seemed to run out of steam. She clearly realized that her behavior might have been very presumptuous and her voice suddenly grew soft.

"That is if you are interested in something like that. I know very little about these, er, spiritual matters."

Ayika now remembered that conversation in Lili's carriage on the way to Lizhen's funeral. It seemed like ages ago but was in fact less than a week. And Mizumi's unspoken implication within the speech was right. There was a spirit crisis going on and Nia Mua was not the kind of person on which one should hang all one's hopes. Ayika needed every bit of spiritual knowledge she could get. The Masks had feared Lizhen for what he knew about spirits. And perhaps more importantly, she needed to know how to stop the Nine-Step-Shadow. If it was targeting Mizumi...Ayika could not bring herself to finish that thought. Or indeed it could be her own death that had been foretold. Once again Ayika keenly felt the absence of Grandma Aka.

But Mizumi had remembered a small promise she had made to her in passing a week ago. Even disregarding all the life or death motivations Ayika had to be enthusiastic about this ceremony for that reason alone. Newly shod, she followed Mizumi down the long hallway passage that connected the street-side entrance to the main body of the mansion. Mizumi was just beginning to explain her plan for excusing Ayika's presence at the ceremony when her father abruptly appeared in the mansion's main hall and derailed the still-born plot.

Tetzamatl Miohuito looked tired. His dark robes were well made and costly as ever but it looked as if they had seen a great deal of use today already. When he saw Mizumi out of the corner of his eye he began to speak in the Islanders' language. All Ayika could make out of the foreign speech was Mizumi's name but before he finished one sentence his eyes locked onto the strange tribal girl who was walking through his mansion.

He switched to the Kingdoms' tongue. "Mizumi, who is this?"

Ayika's heart sounded its beat in her ears. She had not been this close to Miohuito since the night when Teacher Lizhen had been murdered and the city guards had attempted to hold him under murder suspicions. For all the comfort she had come to feel around Mizumi, her father had remained a safely distant and abstract figure. That personification of wealth and power was now focused down on Ayika's trespass onto his territory.

Mizumi was clearly caught off guard by her father's sudden appearance and began to say, "Oh, her? Well, father, you know how..."

Recognition flashed across Miohuito's face. "Oh wait, I recognize her. She has been by this house a few times in the last several days. She was carrying parcels?"

Ayika had been transporting Lili's letter that Xinfei had given her, hidden among a set of clothes that Mizumi had sent off to Anyakya's to provide Ayika with an excuse to return. When Mizumi had spirited her inside the mansion Ayika had tried to stay out of sight of the master of the house but apparently she had not succeeded.

Mizumi gave an easy smile that was casual if you did not notice how she subtly shifted her posture to balance her weight. "Yes, she has been a great help in, er, getting things and-"

"Hrm," Miohuito gave Ayika a thorough visual inspection from foot to hair and then nodded. "You are right of course, we had been meaning to hire you a lady-in-waiting but all this new political business had driven it clean out of my head. Not to say that is an excuse, the way this city is having a second set of eyes and hands to follow you around is likely wise. And very clever, Mizumi, to choose a tribal girl. That will be far less likely to incite resentment among the common folk than seeing an Earth Kingdom girl waiting on you. Wherever did you find her?" Recognition was tickling at the edges of his eyes as he tried to place the memory of first meeting Ayika.

Mizumi flicked her hand dismissively as she gathered her words. "Well, she was employed at the school and-"

Miohuito now remembered where he had seen Ayika before. After all Headmaster Gang had once shoved Ayika into his arms by accident the night of Lizhen's death. "Of course, that's right. Well, I will send off to that Headmaster Gang for her reference when I get a chance but this was good initiative. Now hurry up and get ready for the ceremony. Fire Sage Huitzlan is not sympathetic to latecomers." With that he was off up the main staircase to disappear through some passage on the second floor.

Mizumi was left blinking where she stood. "Huh. Well, I must say I thought I was going to work much harder for that. It is a pity. The story I had concocted was very clever."

Ayika was not sure her heart could stand any more sudden interrogations. It was beating very hard as Mizumi drew near to whisper more. "I'm sure it was. Perhaps we could move to somewhere a little more... a little less exposed?" Apparently, she worked for Mizumi now? Or her father? Ayika was now finding herself quite overburdened with employment offers. Between Mrs Anyakya, Mama Mua, and now the Miohuitos she felt positively swamped.

...

They did not go to the same parlor Mizumi had led Ayika to on her last visit. Instead, after winding through the third floor they arrived at Mizumi's own room. Or rather it was rooms. Mizumi had to herself multiple connected chambers that together must have been larger than Ayika's family apartment. As Mizumi closed the main doors to the suite Ayika made her way through the outer room past yet another set of expensive looking chairs set around a lacquered table too small to be useful until she came to an open doorway that led to Mizumi's sleeping space. The other girl was speaking of how this event they would be attending did possess a moderate expectation of formality in regard to dress. It was phrased delicately but Ayika had only to glance down at her street clothes to know that she did not stand a good chance of fitting in at a Fire Nation religious ceremony.

Mizumi came up behind Ayika and indicated through the second set of doors to a folded set of clothes lying on some furniture in front of a large elevated bed.

"It should fit. When I mentioned my idea to invite you for the ceremony in a letter to Lili, she replied with a very precise set of measurements for you. She seemed very confident in her guesses and I suppose she looks to know more about dressing than I do. Not that it will fit better than what you have worn for your work." Mizumi absently made a quick undulating gesture with her finger in air. Then she caught herself and stumbled over her sudden embarrassment. "Er, no, what I mean is..."

Ayika looked away blushing with awkwardness as Mizumi did the same. Sometimes she wanted to strangle Mrs Anyakya for that stupid skin hugging uniform. "Um, thanks Mizumi. I am sure they will be great. I, uh, will put them on?"

"Yes, great." Mizumi suddenly started. "Oh, I mean, er, I will be in the outer chamber!"

Mizumi quickly slid out the door and Ayika was left alone in her bedroom. She looked over at the books stacked on the shelf but of course she could read none of the titles, despite a few familiar loan characters doing their best to confuse her. With nothing else to do but stand in place feeling embarrassed she moved over to the odd piece of padded furniture at the end of the low but ornate bed. She reached to pick up the indicated pile of clothes, taking care to not let so much as a finger brush the sheets of where Mizumi slept.

The outfit consisted of multiple pieces, but at least it looked like it was not one of the loose midriff baring getups with semitransparent cloth that Ayika had seen some Islander women wearing. She knew the islands were hot but a line had to be drawn somewhere. If that was what they wore on the street then what did they wear in the bedroom? At this point she realized she was actually in a strange bedroom right now and decided to hurriedly get off that line of thought. She absently looked over at a clothes chest wondering if Mizumi owned any of those filmy pieces until she could remind herself that she needed to put on these clothes quickly or Mizumi would think she was snooping round the room.

What Mizumi had gotten for her started with a long light skirt made of fibers so thin the cloth felt like silk. This seemed to go with a loose long-sleeved top in a purple-red shade of grey and both went under a darker draped cape-like thing that somehow crossed in the front like two arms thrown over her neck and was fastened in place with a sash across her waist. This article had fine embroidered stitching along the edges in a lively pattern that swept and whorrled like some mystic script. There were also what looked like armbands but for all Ayika knew about Islander fashions they could just as easily have been intended for the ankles or to be tied to her ears.

As she put on the outfit Ayika had to admit Lili knew what she was talking about when it came to fitting clothes. The outfit matched her form as well as if she had sewed it herself. Better even, perhaps. She glanced down to get a sense of what it looked like on her. She looked like a wealthy Islander woman. Except for her skin. Well, at least the Islanders had more color in them then the pale house-bound ladies of the city. Ayika snorted to herself, if she stayed inside for a year and Mizumi spent a summer working on a ship's deck their skin might actually meet in the middle.

But that was not what she was supposed to be thinking of. Ayika shook herself back down to earth. She hesitantly said, "Um, I think think I have it."

Mizumi opened the door instantly. She must have been waiting right by it outside. "Oh, you look great! Very good!"

Ayika still felt self-conscious wearing this outfit but Mizumi seemed to be sincere. In fact she was once again apologizing for the trouble of making her change but Ayika knew perfectly well that her normal clothes were not appropriate for a fancy temple of any culture. And besides, it did feel strange in a nice way to dress up like this. Ayika smiled a little to herself. That phrase described everything about Mizumi; strange in a very nice way.

By this point Mizumi had remembered that she had promised her father to be back downstairs quickly, so off they raced. When at the end of that quick dash through the mansion halls the main gallery was empty of people Ayika sighed to herself. All that dashing had not actually been necessary. However, Mister Miohuito somehow sensed their arrival and chose that exact moment to come sweeping down the stairs behind them. Mizumi's father was deep in conversation with the some man of his employ and remained so even as their party made its way down the long access hallway through which Ayika had entered the mansion.

Ayika could understand none of the discussion, not speaking the language, but there were a few words here and there which sounded like mangled pronunciations of City government positions. Those two were talking either politics or trade and Mister Miohuito was very absorbed. So absorbed that as their little party exited onto the street and walked down the length Exclusion to the far end of the little island Ayika got the impression that Miohuito's man was subtly steering his boss around obstacles by gesturing figures in the air in the direction needed to avoid danger. Ayika was swept along with Mizumi in the general bustle of departure. Apparently, her presence had already been accepted into this household.

Ayika had just began to relax as she walked beside Mizumi and looked around this new part of the Exclusion she had not seen before when she heard Mister Miohuito's faintly accented voice behind her ear.

"You stick to her side well. Your task will be to obey her in every way, only keep your eyes on her at all times and scream at the first sign of trouble."

Ayika thought it was to her credit that she did not flinch at the man appearing suddenly behind her. Instead she managed to cooly angle her head to the side and reply in her best cultured Middle Ring accent. "Of course I will do so, sir. But are you saying so now because you have expectation of some immediate-"

Miohito waved his hand dismissing this implication as his daughter gave him a very sharp look. "It is always wise for there to be caution. We are on Trade Mission land but this is still foreign territory. Mizumi, stop looking at me in that way. I have every right to curtail your freedom in much more troublesome ways. Setting you a watcher matched in age and gender, _of your own choosing_ , hardly buys me those stares."

Ayika spoke up. "I promise you, sir, I take all my duties very seriously. I will be vigilant as you command."

Mizumi's father gave a vague harumph of approval and fell back to his conversation with his man. When Ayika was angled so Mister Miohuito could no longer see their faces Mizumi gave her a subtle raising of one eyebrow. Ayika met this look and gave a playful shifting of her eyes in return. Her promise here had been very easily given. Of course she would watch after Mizumi. Nothing could have stopped her. Then a shiver ran down her spine. Whether she would be able to do any good was another matter. There were far more dangers than Mister Miohuito could have known; masks and spirits and shadows creeping behind.

And waterbenders. Mama Mua was walking along the far side of the street in all her shamanic splendor. That couldn't be good.

...


	42. Temple

...

Mama Mua was in the Exclusion. Mizumi saw the shaman across the street at the same moment Ayika did and the two girls shared a speechless conversation of panicked confusion. There was no mistake. No one else wore robes of black and blue under that dark red cloth wrapped headboard. What was Mama Mua doing here? It had to be something significant, the Islanders were not her normal customers by any measure. However, the Miohuito party was just about to pass by and leave her behind.

Mizumi thought quickly. Loud enough that it could be heard by the other members of their walking group she announced to Ayika:

"Ah, yes, Ayika, could you pop over there and get me..."

She stumbled as she looked at the shops and stands beside where Mua was walking, trying to come up with some excuse. As a stalling measure she dug out some pieces of money from within her clothes.

"...er, one of those." She pointed vaguely in that direction. "Come on, quick as a flash. We have not got long to dally."

Ayika understood what Mizumi was doing and so gave a quick servile nod of her head and darted off. Behind her, she saw that Mister Miohuito was so absorbed in his business discussion he had unconsciously stopped walking when his peripheral vision noticed his daughter had stopped. However, he was already starting to look around in confusion as his mind finally processed that he was no longer moving. Mizumi could only stall for a moment. So Ayika wasted no time as she slid up behind Mua in the street.

"What are you doing here?" Ayika hissed. She waved the bills Mizumi had given her at the shopkeeper she had ended up beside and made a finger sign for 'one', ignoring whatever nature of product this venue might have happened to be selling. The little jars appeared to mostly hold dried flowers and other withered things.

Mama Mua slowly turned to regard her. Strings of beads and ornaments hanging from the shaman's headdress swished back and forth as an obstacle before her eyes. She seemed unsurprised to see Ayika but then again an ability to appear all knowing was a valuable asset for any fortuneteller no matter how talented. She replied:

"Ah might ask ya the same but Ah think Ah can see the answer."

Ayika frowned at this non-answer but before she could snap back Mua continued, smiling in an uncomfortably cheerful way.

"Someone on this island requested mah services and advice. They've spirits here too, and they certainly have their own worries and feuds. Mah appointment in fact just concluded."

Something was different. Every time Ayika had spoken with Mua before, she'd noted the undercurrent of repressed bitterness and anger that had lurked below the surface of her words. Now it was gone. For some reason it sounded like she was gloating. Like she had crossed some decisive threshold into a new realm of certainty.

Ayika glanced back at the Miohuitos. She only had a few seconds more to find out what Mua was really doing and why she was here. Mizumi's father had just finished remonstrating Ayika to never leave his daughter's side and she was not exactly making a good impression by doing just that. But still she was worried about this sudden and suspicious change in Mua's behavior.

So she made a final push to urge Mua to hold off on whatever was happening long enough for Ayika to have a spare moment. "Look, you said that Lizhen studied spirit stuff in the exclusion. He was killed for his knowledge so maybe I can learn something here at this Naruhama thing at their temple that will help us track down what the Masks are doing. For now just... just wait. We'll find out if Minister Erliao had something to do with the murderer. We'll catch the culprit." She winced a little as she said this. Mua had always reacted hostility to anyone who expressed doubt that her vendetta against Erliao was based on sound logic. The woman was obsessed.

But Nia Mua did not respond to the slight. She said, "Indeed you are right, child. If ya have patience, sometimes ya are given a gift. Be cautious tonight, those mask wearers have changed the other-world rules and this is the Festival of the Autumn Veils. But that's half the fun, isn't it? The upending of order in this far too ordered city. Perhaps even those lingering ghosts will be able to jog back for a visit. Of course any who die hereafter must wait a year for their chance if this spiritual disturbance persists. But if a ghost is forced to linger for a year, what's it to me?" She did not sound as distressed by this talk of ghosts as she had before. The topic which had made her tremble with rage now saw a faint curl of pleasure on her lips. Mua glanced to the side and raised her eyebrow. "Ah think your friend wants you back."

Mizumi was indeed making very agitated motions. Ayika had much more to ask but Mua was already sweeping off down the busy Exclusion street, its traffic parting in deference to the strange presence of power she exuded. It was all Ayika could do to grab the little paper wrapped package of whatever she had purchased from the by now very irritated shopkeeper who was waving it at her face. She darted back to the Miohuito's and made a show of presenting the little bag to Mizumi.

"Ah, yes. Thank you," said Mizumi. "See father, that did not take long at all and now I have..." She unfurled the package a little and looked down into its contents. It was clear that she had no idea what it was. "...what I asked her to get. Well, come on then, do we not have a ceremony to get to?"

Mister Miohuito had managed to secure a glance into the bag as well. "Mizumi?" he said in a very hesitant and slightly concerned voice. "Is that _matzanata_?"

Mizumi slammed the bag shut and her cheeks turned bright red faster than any Ayika had ever seen before. Now Mizumi clearly recognized the dried flowers. Her mouth worked for a brief second before she said, "Grandfather! Grandfather asked me to buy it!"

Miohuito looked at her cooly. "Grandfather. My father sent his teenage granddaughter to buy powerful aphrodisiacs on the street." Ayika's eyebrows nearly met her hairline. The Islanders sold that kind of thing _outside_ the shop? What on earth did they have inside? Mizumi's only choice was to double down on her story. She nodded to her father, perhaps too energetically to be entirely believable.

Miohuito sighed, believing this explanation without question. "Of course he did. Come, let us continue."

Ayika was not sure Mizumi breathed for the next two blocks. She certainly could not bring herself to meet Ayika's eye. For her part Ayika was mostly sure she managed to keep the smile off her face. Her lingering worries about Mua helped her do so. Who had the shaman been talking to in the Exclusion?

...

The Exclusion Fire Temple was at the south end of the foreign territory. In fact, the way it pressed up into the corner of the rectangular island gave the visual indication that the building was attempting to lean as far away from the center of the Impenetrable City as possible. The temple was dominated by a multilevel pagoda in the deep red color that the Islanders saw as holy. Here the styles of Fire Nation architecture that dominated the Exclusion were exaggerated, the upward sweeping eaves surged up like tongues of licking flame made from tile and cast metal.

At either side of the temple entrance there were two large fires burning in metal pedestal-mounted dishes, their flames stoked to great heights in honor of the ongoing ceremonies for the ambassador's soul. Ayika shrank back as she realized that her path would lead them through that all too narrow space between the blazes but Mizumi urged her onward. As Ayika mastered her anxiety she recognized that the entrance was in fact plenty broad and she was in no danger from the flame. Still, the power of the fires did beat fiercely against her exposed cheeks and gave her ears the feeling of glowing with heat. She stuck close to Mizumi.

Ayika had not known what she would see in the interior of a Fire Temple but she supposed she would have been safe to expect fire to be in evidence. However, the primary characteristic she encountered inside was instead a pervasive dimness. She had heard people refer to the Islanders as sun worshipers but if that was true then it was a secret and subdued faith for there seemed to be no windows or indeed any hint of exterior light. Instead, at the far end of this long hall, past highly decorated wooden columns shining with lacquer there was a single fire like a large campfire in a brasier set in an elevated space. The rest of the columned hall was filled with shifting shadows which exposed and hid the carved figures decorating the walls in an inconstant rhythm which lent to those inanimate shapes the motion of a wild and exotic dance. Ayika did not recognize these gods.

"Come on, Ayika," Mizumi said softly.

The various other notable Exclusion personages attending this ceremony were gathering around the lone brasier at the end of the hall so the Miohuito party joined them. Ayika looked around attempting to discern which of these people was the priest but everyone appeared to be standing in the same impatient manner of waiting for something to happen. Soon enough something did. Ayika jumped when a particularly embellished section of wall suddenly split open and swung inward revealing that it had been a door all along. Two men in tall red hats and long red robes walked out on each side. Each held a ball of fire floating in the air above their palm; flame without fuel. All the Islander priests were benders. People said that for them the magic of the elements was traditionally a matter of holiness rather than one of civic service as it was in the Kingdoms. Not that this seemed to have stopped benders enrolling in their military.

The waiting crowd began to move into the newly revealed chamber. Suddenly, Ayika heard someone say:

"At least someone finally convinced Huitzlan that banning people from the temple's inner sanctum was ridiculous. Ambassador Naruhama's funeral was an embarrassment. Even I was forbidden from watching the body and totem burning, and that was after Huitzlan had me marching beside him in the funeral procession. At least the fool sage managed to get the incineration done by the ridiculous moonrise deadline apparently proscribed by tradition. I got to report to the Fire Lord that everything was technically according to form. You know Huitzlan only got away with modifying that ritual since Naruhama has no family in here in the city to object."

Ayika turned to see a tall man with a thin black beard standing beside Mister Miohuito and softly talking. She had only seen him a few times before but still she recognized Tailang, the Fire Nation Trade Representative and current unofficial leader of the Exclusion. Miohuito looked at the mn with a vague mixture of relief and annoyance as he made an indistinct noise of agreement. Mizumi responded to this sudden appearance by moved over slightly to better shield Ayika from the Representative's sight. Ayika doubted such a man would recognize a servant girl he had briefly seen at the school all those nights ago but Mizumi's concern was comforting. Ayika had read those suspicious messages Lili had written about him.

This new temple room they had entered was also dimly lit. What little light there was came from the flickering illumination on the top of a rectangular metal block that rose out of the center on a stepped pedestal. The object was hollow and was filled with dark liquid. Faint blue flames licked over its lips and glistened across the surface; fire on water.

Then a figure stepped up from the shadows and took his place on the pedestal just behind the burning pool. The man was old and dressed like the other red priests only with a greater profusion of embroidered gold and flanges of yellow cloth accenting his robes like he himself was aflame. This had to be Fire Sage Huitzlan. As he moved Ayika heard a strange sound, like the muffled rustling of paper from within his robes. In the dim light she thought she saw the edge of something peaking out from under a hem, paper with black characters like a spirit warding charm. The he shifted again and whatever it was vanished.

With a quick motion the Fire Sage raised his thin arms and the dish of fire burst into a blinding conflagration that blasted heat out to every corner of the room. Then the fire was gone, leaving the onlookers blinking at the splotches of color floating before their eyes in the darkness. The only visible objects remaining was the two small white flames floating above the sage's open palms. Their light shone reflected in the old sage's eyes.

The faint blue flames on the pool before him resumed their glimmer as the sage began to speak. Ayika could not understand his words, he was speaking in the Islander's native tongue. However, Mizumi had positioned herself among the worshipers so that she was pressing up against Ayika's back in a position to quietly provide explanations. When she whispered her breath brushed Ayika's ear. Mizumi began to translate and Ayika shivered although the room was hot.

"He is calling on Naruhama's soul to once again hear our pleas and to refrain from reentering the cycle of reincarnation. He beseeches the spirit world to allow Naruhama to tarry and make his home there so that he might watch over this settlement as its city god. He promises to continue the offerings which will empower Naruhama's soul to effect this change and he reassures the spirits that the ambassador's ghost was bound by mask and sealed by burning. And now he says...Oh, this is the part where we bow."

The assembled rows of observers had spread out and now sunk down to their knees while they pressed their foreheads toward the ground. Ayika did so too, looking out the corner of her eye to match the motions of those around her. She was one of only three non-Islanders that she could see in the room and certainly the only person of the Tribes. It was in her interest to blend in, even if it meant complying with this awkward genuflection. Elevated above the kneeling crowd, Sage Huitzlan continued his speech.

The listeners returned to their feet and Ayika felt the muscles of her back tense involuntarily at the phantom pressure of anticipating Mizumi nearing her ear. Sure enough she felt the soft touch of the other girl against the back of her dress. Mizumi resumed her murmured explanation.

"This part is just a ritual chant. To tell the truth I am not entirely sure what it means. It is an old tradition with archaic language. Oh, and now he will begin giving over the offerings for this day of the deification ceremony."

Other priests, less wizened and with less elaborate outfits, climbed up the first few steps holding a variety of valuable looking objects in their hands. Huitzlan grabbed the first and with a brief incantation and a flourish dropped it down to disappear within the burning pool. One by one the gifts fell through the flames to vanish from sight in the dark pond. Ayika thought it was a curious twist that the citizens of the Kingdoms burned their offerings while the Fire Nation dropped theirs into water. Now that she thought of it, the people of the Water Tribe left offerings out in the air until it was concluded the spirits had taken what they wished of it and the humans could reclaim the material husk that remained. There was something nicely cyclical or reciprocal about that.

Mizumi had her own interpretations.

"I have heard father suggest that the priests drop the gifts down so that they can be recovered later and sold once they remove the skin of burning oil from the water's surface." She was clearly impatient at sitting through this display. It was likely she had seen other similar ceremonies before, even if the precise nature of a deification ritual was a rare thing. Ayika had no issues with the priests collecting the offerings; spirits were concerned with intent and ritual rather than material things. The strength of the worship ensured the offerings were real on the other side of the veil. And Ayika could feel that the power being invoked was real.

Something other than boredom was disquieting Ayika. For the last few days she had been trying to meditate and sense the disruption in the city that Mama Mua said was disturbing the spirits; whatever the Masks were doing. Now as she was forced to remain still and contemplative here she felt an uneasiness from behind her heart. The same instincts that sometimes told her when a fight was soon to break out on the city streets were now telling her that something was very wrong here. This should be a peaceful, joyful ceremony, even if it was strange and unfamiliar. But she was not at peace. It was the same sensation she had encountered at Lizhen's funeral. A sense of disruption, of something not quiet right in the world.

A sudden impulse made her twist around and look behind her. Mizumi stared at her in confusion and all Ayika could see were the other guests behind her and the chamber door behind them. If she could have seen through walls her eyes would have gone on to look through the Exclusion streets and then on to the Wall and the City itself. Something was wrong in that direction, but a limitation of the entire city was not helpful. She would try to ask Mua for greater assistance though assistance with what she didn't know. She turned back around to attend to the Fire Sage again.

Mizumi put a brief hand against Ayika's shoulder in confused gesture of comfort before she resumed her translation. Ayika shook her head slightly to indicate that her disquiet had passed. The foreign priest extinguished the magical flames he held over his hands, and was now speaking more passionately. Ayika guessed that in some way he was now operating in a personal rather than holy capacity. According to Mizumi, Huitzlan was talking about the Fire Nation's strong relationship with the spirits and the spirit world, as well as his sorrow that the people of the Kingdoms suffered such limitations in those areas. He did not sound too sad about it. In the audience Trade Representative Tailang was smirking.

Mizumi continued, sometimes stumbling over the rapid translation. "Now it is the thing, the thing... he is saying how we must hold strong during troubled times. That if those who hate us look strong then their strength will only serve to destroy them. The people of the kingdom are without strength of spirituality and their desire to know a strength like ours leaves them open to corruption. Their forgotten gods will turn on them and our culture will be proved superior and...and he is saying a lot of things along that line." She had the decency to look embarrassed for the words of her countryman even if Ayika could understand none of them herself.

Ayika might have expected this kind of talk. But what she had not expected was the offense she began to feel as she caught the gist of this speech from the clearly articulated tone and Mizumi's guiltily muttered annotations. Ayika knew better than most the great many failings of the Kingdoms in general and Ba Sing Se in particular, the Masks' violence alone was proof, but to hear these foreigners smirking about it was something new. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tailang smirking and even Mister Miohuito nodding occasionally. To her surprise she noticed she had been pressing her teeth together tightly. The Islanders were rich and had better technology than the rest of the world. They didn't need to rub it in. And they had nothing to compare to the might of the Impenetrable City, the greatest human settlement in history.

It seemed there was one final part to the ceremony, and one that shook Ayika out of her grumbling introspection. At a gesture from the priests all the worshipers straightened their stance and placed their feet close together below them. Huitzlan now began to chant again and to Ayika's surprise it was taken up by nearly every other person in the room. Every Islander recited the creed in unison. Even Mizumi belted out the foreign syllables with the force of a soldier on the parade ground as they pledged their service and unity to their nation. Ayika shivered despite the heat.

For people of her age the war was an event long past. The Islanders were just another group who came to the city to make a better life. But now, as the walls reverberated with the mass chant of unwavering nationalistic discipline, for the first time she began to understand why people were afraid of the Fire Nation. Now she remembered stories of the war when faces like these around her had marched across the earth, united by blood and faith under a single High Lord, with benders of both genders trained from birth for combat and piloting machines greater and more powerful than any created before in the world. Professor Lizhen had said they had not been defeated. They had decided on peace. One day they might change their mind. It was enough to make a girl feel cold even in a temple filled with fire.

...


	43. Costumes

...

The walk out of the Fire Temple was much quicker than the entry. Even the Islanders seemed intent on exiting those heated confines in a swift and orderly manner. Outside the door Mister Miohuito had several persons among the attendees he wished to speak with, this outing being for him as much for business as it was about religion. The crowd of mourners or celebrants or whatever they were diffused into clumps of conversation in the paved space outside the temple entrance. There were other lesser fire priests wearing unadorned robes, probably junior clergy, standing at attention near the walls and the large brasiers. They were either unobtrusively soliciting donations or making sure none of these merchants or embassy workers stole any carvings or statues off the temple. Then Ayika thought about the political currents within the Exclusion; of the uncertain alliances of power after the death of the Ambassador. Maybe the priests were listening in on the conversation. If Mizumi was right, climate of the Exclusion must be just as uneasy as the town across the moat. Mizumi came in close to Ayika as they moved to the edge of the crowd so they could speak without being overheard.

"So..." Mizumi said as she smiled. With her rolling accent that 'S' sounded like a long 'Z'. "What did you think? Were our ceremonies interesting?"

Ayika replied, "The... I'd never seen an empowering ritual before. Usually the interactions with the dead I've seen are involved with quieting ghosts or honoring the long gone. Grandma Aka never showed... And the Kingdoms priests must have their own versions of those. If what Mua said's true they'll need them as this spirit crisis grows." She started to get deeper into the academic analysis of what she had seen. "I know many of the Government Temples have gods who were once citizens many hundreds of years ago. But I don't know..." Here she suddenly stopped and lightly hit Mizumi on the stomach to attract her attention. "Shh! What's Tailang saying to your father?"

Mizumi had the good grace to not point out that she had not been the one speaking and so Ayika was spared some embarrassment over that unneeded smacking. They both subtly angled their heads to surreptitiously listen in on this new conversation.

Tailang was speaking. Ayika was surprised that he used the Kingdoms' language with a countryman like Miohuito but then the Trade Representative gave a sly glance at one of the junior priests nearby. Ayika guessed that mabey he didn't want his words working their way back inside the temple to the ears of Fire Sage Huitzlan.

"...stickler for formalities. And with all the little accidents I've been hearing are happening within the temple I can see why the staff are on edge. Still, I can not deny that Sage Huitzlan is a genius at understanding the psychology of the masses. His idea to give out..." Here he changed his mind of what he was going to say to Mizumi's father. "He's right, the people of this land value their superstitions and even if they are ultimately self destructive. It is at our own risk that we ignore those beliefs completely. Symbols are very powerful if people believe them to be powerful. In this city they will believe anything if you mention the spirit world."

Tailang re-centered his thoughts, ignoring Miohuito's skeptical frown. Apparently Tailang was fine with one sided conversations. "And that is why I came to this event straight from another fascinating spectacle of my own arranging. I have had quite a day, managing public thought is rather tiring. I was yelled at by local Earth Kingdom priests from the Harbor Town and even a tribal witch doctor for daring to call for a calming influence from the religions leaders of this little section of the city. I am returning to the Trade Mission presently, now that they've had time to stew their heels and get into a more cooperative mood. Hopefully, a few slips of printed money in the right hands will help prevent riots here like in the Middle Ring. The cooperation of community leaders could be invaluable."

Mizumi snatched at Ayika's wrist and hissed in her ear. "Witch doctor. Is that Mama Mua? What is she doing meeting with Tailang? I had thought there was something strange about her being here."

Ayika's eyes were wide. This explained why Tailang didn't want the fire priests to hear. She doubted they'd take kindly to their defacto ambassador becoming so chummy with the local religious figures. She whispered back as she strained her ears to make out Miohuito's reply. "I don't know! Mua didn't say anything about something like this. Her appointment was at the embassy and she didn't tell me?"

Miohuoto sounded less confidant about Tailang's plan to calm the Harbor, though he consented to continue the conversation in the chosen language. "All those inflammatory figures here? Are you sure that was wise? I mean, we of the Nation have not completely escaped damage from the nationalists even if our Earth Kingdom allies have born the brunt of it. I mean, it was just two weeks ago that your assistant was-"

Tailang interrupted with a snap. "Hiro was killed in a mugging. Diplomatic immunity does nothing if you decide to cross through a Lower Ring alley with your purse hanging out. And today is in fact a perfect time to gather inflammatory charlatans. The city is distracted by their holiday. There's enough free food and drink in the Rings that no one is going to want to come out here to bother us. We will find which priests and witches to pay off and then send them out to spread the good word once all the good citizens sober up."

Miohuito looked around, frowning in an unfocused manner at all the other people standing in conversation before the temple. "That can not come soon enough for me. All these Earth Kingdomers out in masks... I was at Aizhang Gaoli's when the mob attacked and I caught a glimpse of those who were leading it. The Ministers and the Public Safety Agency might say they have things under control but there is something going on far greater than upset local craftsmen. One of those secret organizations has become serious."

Tailang snorted dismissively. "Don't you worry about people wearing masks. I have our safety well in hand... even if there was a slip up with the neighborhood around Gaoli," he admitted.

Miohuito continued unmollified. "I would not put it past Chao Erliao to have set it up himself. He was out there that night. Did you know he had the nerve to invite my family to his Inner Ring house tonight? As if I could risk it."

Now Tailang raised an eyebrow. "Really? He sent that invitation to you as well? Several arrived at the Embassy but I had assumed their being sent was another piece of obscure governmental etiquette from this tradition-bound country. But it actually appears that Erliao had high hopes for this party. He must have invited everyone." Now the Trade Representative's smile became wicked. "All the better."

He continued, "It may be a pity you are not attending. I've managed to procure the host a...gift of sorts. I handed out one of his invitations to an interested party. I am sure Erliao will be quiet distracted, as I gather he does not think anyone remembered this particular personal connection to his past life. But I am sure you will hear about what happens tonight soon enough. Such news as what will happen tends to spread quickly."

Miohuito clearly did not know what Tailang was hinting at but the thick implications made him uncomfortable. For a brief moment Ayika was just as confused until Mizumi inhaled sharply behind her.

"He gave the party invitation to Mua. He somehow knows she hates Erliao and he sent Mama Mua up there on her mission of revenge! As some sort of political retribution!"

The thoughts flashed together in Ayika's mind, confirming this leap of logic. Mua had sounded clearer today on the street, more focused and less frustrated. The lashing bitterness that had characterized the woman before had been almost absent. As if something had changed. As if some longstanding obstacle had been removed. She'd seemed purposeful and yet at the same time resigned. Suddenly Ayika knew why. She knew what Mua had decided.

"Mizumi, I...I think she's going up there to kill him."

Mizumi was not immediately horrified at the prospect of the death of the conservative leader but she was concerned. She surreptitiously glanced around to make sure none of the other people standing outside the temple were near enough to hear. "And you still think Erliao was not the one who ordered Lizhen's death?"

"That doesn't matter! I mean..." Ayika pressed her hand against her head attempting to silence the sound of pounding blood there. "We don't know. She's going up there to murder Erliao and we don't know what the truth is. She...I can tell she has hated Erliao for a long time. I don't know why she hates him so much other than that it somehow involved Lizhen years ago. But she had decided on his guilt as soon as she heard that Lizhen was dead. She hasn't really been looking for evidence."

"But you said that she consulted the spirits about the murder and they had provided indication."

Ayika shook her head. "The spirits don't talk like that. They don't speak about guilty or innocent. They don't care about our problems that way. They do not even know who Erliao is, or what a minister or a teacher is. They only see our souls."

While they were conferring it seemed the period of polite chit chat after the ceremony was almost over and people were beginning to depart. The street outside the Fire Temple was gradually melting back to its normal state as a thoroughfare. Mizumi turned and looked away down the street. At what, Ayika could not say.

Mizumi parted her lips slowly. "If Minister Erliao were to die, it...It would be bad. The King's protections for my people might vanish. The people who hate foreigners in this city would be emboldened. Whatever magician leads the masks, it would be a victory for them even if Erliao is on their side. If it is not Erliao himself who is behind all this."

Ayika had made up her mind. "We have to stop Mua. She's my countrywoman. We're the only ones who know what she can do."

"Countrywoman? I thought she was from the central forest tribes, not the North."

Ayika clenched her hands at her side. She looked down the street the main street past the edge of the Exclusion to the distance where the city wall loomed. Already the roads of the Harbor Town were gleaming with colored paper spirit-lanterns as the sky above melted to red.

"She lives in my city," Ayika said, firm enough to even surprise herself. "She's my countrywoman. This is my home and I am going to do anything to keep it together."

A smile spread across Mizumi's lips and reached up to her narrowing eyes. "Then we have a party to get ready for." The rolling timbre of her voice set a shiver in Ayika's heart. As battle cries went, she had heard far worse.

...

Xinfei made his way up the sloped streets that zigged and zagged their way along the side of the Fifth Hill. Even with the employee passport gifted from Lili granting him usage of the tram-lines this trip to the Middle Ring had been troublesome. With the night of the festival of veils fast approaching, the entire city was in motion and it had seemed to Xinfei that a good percentage of it had been in his tram car. Even when he managed to squeeze out at the appropriate stop the population was greatly in evidence, milling through the streets in a flurry of last minute holiday preparations. Even up here on the hill among these merchant's mansions there were people standing on every street-corner. However, here they were armored city guards instead of shoppers.

The path turned a corner and Xinfei ducked his head to not make eye-contact with the two weapon-carrying men who were stationed there. This was the fifth such guard post he'd passed already. The Harbormaster's compound had fewer patrols surrounding it. On his left across the street, a patch of wall sported a fresh coat of paint. Only at the very upper edge showed a hint of the soot-blackened surface that the riot had left behind. Up ahead was a compound gate that had several new boards where damaged pieces had been replaced. Xinfei imagined the rich residents of this neighborhood had said quite a few things to the ministers about the Mask's march. This was the eve of the Festival of Veils, when the entire city would be turned out in disguise and the gates would be thrown open to a mixing of the classes. Whoever had hired these extra guards was taking no chances.

He kept his head down all the way up to the peak of the hill. As he made that last step into the empty square between two hulking mansions a shiver ran down his back. This place looked so different lit by the sun rather than the gas lamps. It was small. Looking at the clean swept stones and little fountain he could barely imagine how so many people could have fit in here on that dark burning night. But then he noticed that the paving stones near one of the mansion gates were of a slightly different character. The earth benders had ripped the old ground supply apart in their attack on the crowd. Also, there were an odd number of gas lamps. The one ripped up by that Mask had not been replaced.

"Just drop off Lili's stuff and get out of here," Xinfei muttered to himself. But despite his common sense he found himself hoping that he would be able to find a few moments to talk with her. It would be nice to talk to anyone he could brag to. Ayika and Maolin were so busy, but for once the wallet hanging under Xinfei's shirt was thick with actual coins and paper. He felt the tug of the cord on the back of his neck. With the first bit of money Lili had loaned him he'd purchased some foreign-made fabrics like her cover story suggested he was doing. Even paying with someone else's money to a seller with dubious rights of ownership, the price had nearly made him feel faint. Xinfei wouldn't claim to be an expert on clothes-making but he remembered of the outfits he had seen Lili wearing and selected patterns that seemed to be variations on those. All the women in the city wanted to look like the rich girls, right?

The process of actually selling the stuff again had been exhausting but there were rewards. It was not until he calculated his profit margin in preparation to repay Lili that he nearly did faint.

Last time up here Lili'd been more interested using him as a mail charier than hearing his exploits, but after he'd handed over Mizumi's response letter Xinfei chose his next product line more carefully. Nothing where he had to make up half the descriptive words and nothing that might accidentally burn his eyebrows off. Something nice and safe with a high profit margin. Those arsenic based face whitening creams were perfect and were just bursting onto the Ba Sing Se fashion scene from the Fire Nation. It was just odd that all the women looked at him strangely when they saw a man selling makeup. He wondered if Lili would like these products better.

Xinfei froze as he raised his hand to knock on the small side door set into the Gaoli compound's wall. Even the servant's entrance of the Gaoli mansion was absurdly fancy. Stalling for time he rechecked the paper wrapping around his bundle of goods all ready to be rejected and felt it to verify that the letter was still safely tucked inside. Mentally he prepared the speech that would get him to actually talk with Lili herself instead of handing off the package with the butler and waiting for it to be returned. Then he tapped his knuckle against the green painted wood.

His fourth knock fell on air.

"You're here!" Lili Gaoli was suddenly in the doorway just as the door abruptly was not. Xinfei jumped back as he jerked to avoid rapping on the rich girl's forehead.

Lili didn't notice; she was already talking. "Oh, thank the King's good grace you are here right now. This opportunity's not going to be open for all that long! How are you doing? Have you been well since I last saw you? We'll have to move fast to slip out, of course once we do so we should be golden until tomorrow morning the way things tend to go here."

Xinfei opened his mouth. He had some important things to say about this very rapid series of mixed pleasantries and conspiracy but the words could not seem to find their way past his eyes. Lili was wearing a costume.

There seemed to be two layers. Underneath she wore a simple dress of cream colored silk that shimmered with every fold. It lay very close against her skin. Over that was what he could only describe as armor made of pale green lace. The woven patterns of fabric flowers and leaves and swirls were stiff enough that they stood away from the body a little bit culminating where it rose up behind her shoulders in small projections that gave the impression of soft wings. In honor of the festival she wore a mask. It was green as well, brilliant green like the buds of new leaves and made of lace-like embroidery that wove its way up from low on her cheeks to continue up over her sleek black hair to where it met the golden flower ornament holding her bun.

"Haiguh...," was what Xinfei managed to say.

"Hmm?" Lili made a politely inquiring noise. When Xinfei did not manage to elaborate in the next few seconds she continued. "You were right about trying to track down those student nationalists from the riot and my little efforts have paid off. I received a letter from a Danqiao Ming who had heard from... You know, it does not particularly matter. The result is that I have found some information about the whereabouts of a certain Zhangyi Mao, Chonglong Yu, and Jiang Li. And tonight my father's off at some Inner Ring party for the holiday. I can easily slip away for several hours."

"But won't someone notice you are gone?" He noticed that at no point in this did she phrase anything close to a request.

Lili smiled in a crooked way that managed to be something akin to a wolfish grin without a hint of teeth showing between her lips. She looked up at him and said, "We're hosing a party tonight and I've been playing coy with my mother about my chosen costume for the holiday. I told her we would make a game out of her picking me out of the crowd of tonights party in the house. The guests are arriving any moment. Through some artfully phrased letters I've convinced every one of my similarly aged acquaintances to wear an identical face-concealing costume and sport the same hairstyle. Not that they know they'll all be doing that. The confusion of that confrontation alone should utterly disguise my absence and once resolved will provide ample excuse for my supposed hiding away within the mansion." She paused. "Really, it is tempting to stay just to watch the screaming unfold. But civic duty calls."

"Huh," Xinfei said. "You really are an agent of chaos aren't you?" As soon as the words left his mouth he was already inwardly beating himself for insulting her. He also noticed that he had yet to point out that he hadn't agreed to any of this.

Lili's face lit up with genuine appreciation. "Why thank you, Xinfei Bao! Don't worry, I am sure you'll get plenty of opportunities to prove yourself the same. The Festival of Veils in the Middle Ring is... an interesting time."

Xinfei rolled his eyes before he could catch himself. This rich girl really did not understand the lower rings if she thought this place was wild. He then mentally kicked himself as he realized that apparently actually going to go along with this insane plan. He had a bad habit with girls and plans.

He sighed, "Yeah, sure the Rings are crazy. Well, I'll keep an eye out for you but I don't really think some drunk merchants up here are going to shock me. If we're really doing this then we should hurry out and so we can get back as quick as possible." He started looking down the alley to be sure that there were no guards watching their potential exit. The sun was dipping down in the sky and the compound walls that still caught the light were assuming a red tinged air.

He suddenly felt a smooth hand against his cheek. "Oh, my brave friend. Tonight will be an eye opener for you. The most repressed are the most wild when the masks come down. And speaking of which, you need a costume! Luckily, I guessed your size. It's a talent of mine."

Xinfei gulped. He was not sure he liked that twinkle in Lili's green eyes. A little part of him was wishing that there was a guard nearby to stop them. A much larger part of him grinned right back at her.

...

When Mizumi had announced that tonight they would be attending Minister Erliao's party in pursuit of Mama Mua she'd spoken like a general declaring war. And if that was the case then the wardrobes she led Ayika to upon their return to the mansion were her personal armory. Certainly a small battalion could be outfitted for the value of what Ayika saw hanging here. Even though Mizumi might prefer to dress in practical outfits more influenced by military uniforms than high fashion she was still a rich lady and so had options sufficient to dress twenty women for a fancy party. Then she announced that they were disregarding all of that because she'd already chosen costumes for them.

After exiting for a brief moment to dress, Mizumi returned in a festival costume of deep burgundy mixed with ornaments of gold. The skirt was in fact more like a large number of broad overlapping cloth strips that hung down over loose trousers of a lighter color. Each strip of the skirt had a sinuous line of gold stitching running down it. Her top continued the same trend of shades of red and shinning gold ornaments and though it was rather too short in the torso at least she was wearing a, rather tight, shirt underneath it for decency. Still, that undergarment did not quite reach up to the rather precipitous neckline. Ayika's eyes did snag there but she managed to wrench them upwards where Mizumi's painted lips and blackened lashes accompanied another eye-widening sight.

Mizumi was wearing a fantastic headdress. It was shone with gold and was composed of three points like the horns of an unknown beast or the crown of an ancient foreign king. The back was twisted out of colorful cloth all the colors of fire. Wearing it, Mizumi looked like a sun god descended to earth.

"Wow," was all Ayika could say.

"It is the Festival of Veils and we ride to battle. I thought we should have appropriate armor." Mizumi smiled. "I have gotten a costume for you as well."

A few minutes of changing later Ayika opened her eyes to look at herself in the dressing room mirror. She spared a distant thought to consider that it was the largest flawless glass mirror she'd ever seen. What it held within was more remarkable. The dress was rich, and made of some fabric weave that presented impossible qualities. When looked straight on it was a brilliant blue like the deep cloudless sky, but where the fabric twisted it turned dark and almost purple. Silvery thread marked out crescent lines in the natural folds of the dress across her chest and below like ripples of a reflection in the water. It was just above this that outfit parted alarmingly in the front but that allowed it to showcase a large flat circle of a pendant hanging from her neck. Ayika saw its gleam and feared the necklace was pure silver. A smaller disk hung down from her hair against to rest against her forehead above the thin silver mask that was fastened over her eyes and cheekbones. This costume should have been scandalous. She should have been mortified. But the face looking back was not hers. It couldn't be.

The mask only stretched from the cheek to the forehead, though it sprouted winglike flanges on each side. In the steady light of the oil lamps it glistened like silver turned into ten thousand shards of crystal. This set off the smooth dark skin and the gentle curve of the lips below. Those lips were held ever so slightly apart in an expression of astonished pleasure and accented with the sweep of the makeup brush. And the mask still showed her eyes. Eyes that glared out command and confidence from behind the sparkle of silver. The woman who wore this was beautiful. This woman was powerful. This woman did not look up to see the entirety of society walking above her not even noticing her home and family down so far below the level of the ground. This woman didn't need to be afraid.

Mizumi was beside her and the heat of her body pressed against Ayika's arm. "I have heard that in the Festival of Veils, celebrants often create allusions to certain spirits in their costumes. I know that La the moon spirit is especially important to your people. And also, silver and gold? It means that we match! The night and the day!" Suddenly, she grew worried. "It is not disrespectful I hope? I know that I do not know much about the culture of the Water Tribes and-"

Ayika felt to the side and somehow fumblingly caught hold of Mizumi's hand. She clutched it tight as she continued to stare into the mirror. That unknown and powerful woman stared back from its depths. "It..." She could not find the words willing to come out of her mouth. And somehow Mizumi understood.

...


	44. Lanterns

...

They moved to exit the Miohuito mansion quickly. Mizumi had acquired permission to go out and enjoy some of the Exclusion's limited festival night offerings but Mister Miohuito would likely have still insisted on a whole guard detachment to accompany her if he'd seen them departing. If he knew they were going all the way to the Inner Ring he would have locked his daughter up. Ayika had to admit, things looked bad when they rushed out the door of Mizumi's rooms and skidded to a halt in front of an expensively dressed old man Ayika had to assume was Mizumi's grandfather. However, Mizumi just leaned in close to whisper something to him in the Islander language. Whatever it was the old man replied with a sly grin, a nod, and some sentences Ayika didn't understand.

Mizumi stepped back and explained, "He says go. In fact, he will send out the second best carriage to drive around the Exclusion so it will look to my father like I am on it. Grandfather says he learned long ago that strong women can take care of themselves. Especially against weak little earth kingdom..." She paused and considered how to delicately phrase the last part of her translation. "Um, he trusts I will be fine out in the city."

Beneath her silver mask Ayika felt comfortable giving this elderly patriarch a very disapproving look. Her scorn at his casual racism just seemed to delight him more. He met her eye and pulled down the collar of his embroidered robe slightly to expose the white mark of a scar. Then he said something else and winked.

Ayika spoke out of the corner of her mouth, not completely trusting that this man was as ignorant of the Kingdoms' language as he claimed.

"And what was that?"

"He says that is how he learned about strong women. That and some other things I am not going to translate."

Mizumi's grandfather grinned at Ayika and waved the two girls off. Ayika gave a small bow of thanks and felt the silver disk on the headband tap against her forehead as she straightened up. Together, Ayika and Mizumi slunk away down the mansion's hallways made their way out onto the street.

The Exclusion streets were as busy as always but this evening their usual energy was curiously muted by comparison to what was happening in the City. The vibrant Islanders showed a hint of hesitancy as they went about their business. As the girls reached the bridge over the Exclusion moat Ayika could see the colored paper lanterns hanging from every window in the harbor town. The kingdom's citizens were out in their most colorful costumes, any customary reserve thrown heedless to the winds. Strings of flags in yellow, green, blue, and purple flew from archways and fluttered over dirty stone city streets that were for once swept clean. Strands of music rose from multiple directions. Against this backdrop the normally flamboyant Exclusion seemed to hunker back into itself, uncertain of what to make of this transformation in its elderly and staid host.

They had reached halfway across the Exclusion bridge when Ayika stopped and turned to the side, "Mizumi, look!"

Muzumi turned and her eyes were instantly filled with a blazing red. The sun hung low in the sky, swollen to a shimmering globe of smoldering color. Mizumi flinched and looked away as she felt the pain of staring too closely at that astronomical regent. The mask's wide eyeholes provided no obstruction of vision but at this moment she wished she had been a little less practical. The Festival of Veils had a very uncertain demarcation point for its consummation. According to Mizumi's book on local culture one of several signs listed by tradition was the point in the evening when you could look dead into the eyes of the sun. If that condition was not met then it soon would be.

Ayika laughed as she lifted her silver mask to rub at her own eyes. "Ah, I'm sorry! That was stupid, making you look into the sun. My bad."

Mizumi smiled and bumped her shoulder against Ayika's as they stood side by side against the bridge railing. "The apology is accepted. But if that brings me to go blind then you will be responsible for leading me through the streets."

Ayika grabbed Mizumi's arm and linked it gently in the crook of her own. She spoke in mock seriousness. "Of course, my unfortunate lady. I shall dedicate my life to making amends for my heinous mistake, if only you will accept my service." She held her face so still and somber that Mizumi could not help but let out an embarrassing snort of laughter. Ayika's false facade cracked instantly. They laughed together as the two of them strode out into the Festival of Veils and evening deepened around them. But they were not just two girls out enjoying the holiday. They had a mission that could prove extraordinarily dangerous. Why then was it she could only feel joy?

...

Ayika still held Mizumi's arm as they walked down the streets of the Kuang Harbor towards the City Gate. As part of the new restrictions placed down by the King's ministers in the wake of the riot, people without government passports could not ride the tram line all the way from the Harbor to the Inner Ring. That meant the two of them would have to walk through the Craftsmen's Gate and board in the Lower Ring. That was concerning but right now Ayika was much more concerned by the arm she held linked with hers. Ayika had initiated this physical contact as part of a joke but now she was worried that she had held on for far too long. They'd made their way several blocks past the bridge, arm in arm and in a constant commentary about the surrounding decorations. To Ayika the surroundings were comfortable and familiar if not revealing a lackluster poverty in their construction but to Mizumi they still were all strange and fascinating.

But what to do about the arm? If Ayika let go of Mizumi's arm now it would seem an abrupt change. Mizumi might wonder if she'd given offense. Or perhaps Mizumi was very uncomfortable with the excessive familiarity and was silently waiting for Ayika to come to her senses. But then again, Mizumi had been comfortable with initiating intimate contact before. Ayika had assumed it was an Islander thing or it could have been some friendly quirk of Mizumi herself. And yet Ayika was still holding this soft arm against her. This small decision was growing in magnitude with each passing moment and Ayika's heart was beating harder with the stress.

Suddenly a man in a woven straw mask pushed past them in the street. To judge from his wobbling gait, he had gotten a head start on the night's festivities by a bottle or two. Ayika felt Mizumi stiffen. After a brief moment Ayika suddenly realized why. The Fire Nation woman had never seen this festival before. The only men in masks she had seen in in this city were the Initiated screaming about the evils of foreigners and ripping apart iron with their hands. Of course she would be frightened. But she was still Mizumi Miohuito and so the next time she was jostled by someone on the street she instead responded with a sudden flurry of insults and jeers in a passable imitation of a Kingdoms accent. Then she laughed, reassured that she didn't stand out from the rest of the revelers on the street.

Ayika shook her head with a smile. Mizumi could have sounded like anything she chose and it would have made no difference in allowing her to pass by unnoticed. Her fancy costume might not stood out not by strangeness, but it did by quality. Every eye was on her, but apparently no one made the leap to assume her true ethnicity. Islander fashions and fabrics were popular all over the city so no one thought twice about the exotic design. The two of them passed others on the street with costumes just as elaborate, some far more garish, and even the poorest denizens of the Bed walked these roads with a strand of ribbon wrapped over their nose and cheeks to be tied behind their head. Little strips of colored paper fluttered from all over their clothes as a substitute for a costly costume. If Mizumi and Ayika attracted attention it was only for being two beautiful young ladies out at sunset. Of course Mizumi was a beauty but Ayika noticed with sudden surprise that she had also thought of herself as beautiful. And she still held Mizumi's arm in the crook of her own.

The sun had now set but streets were still awash with light and the normal rhythms of the city were reversed. On this festival night the sinking sun brought shutters thrown open instead of latched. Salespeople set their stalls up as they lit the lamps instead of taking them down. Small children sat on their doorsteps and giggled as they whispered to each other, their cheeks marked with ash to disguise them from any passing ghosts who were out for a stroll. A little girl pointed a chubby finger at Mizumi as they passed. The girl's eyes were big as she said, "Pretty!" From inside the window her father muttered something in agreement which earned him a light smack from his smirking wife.

Ayika felt her neck tingle with the sensation of more eyes on her but she could not spare thought for that. There was a feverish heat of excitement and agency rising in her. It was a pleasant anxiety. They were now nearing the central canal that ran through the town and she had an idea. Grinning, she slipped her arm free to grab Mizumi's hand.

"Come on, I want to show you something!"

Mizumi laughed as she was tugged along and they darted around the other people in the street. Then they were on the arching stone bridge and looking out at a spectacle. The thickly packed boats on the Grand Canal were burning with the colored light of a thousand paper lanterns. The hundred hues reflected off the lapping surface of the water forming ten thousand twinkling stars imbued with the heart of the rainbow. This sight raced out into the distance under sweeping spans of other bridges as the canal stabbed its way through the town towards the city wall that blanked out the horizon, still faintly visible as a slightly lighter black, glowing orange in places from the reflected light of the town and the star-like guard stations that punctuated that artificial cliff.

"Ta da," Ayika said weakly as she had just realized they would have walked up to this bridge in just a moment anyway so there was no reason to suddenly pull Mizumi off her feet by running. There were other people standing on the bridge who had stopped and were watching them now. Ayika shrank behind her silver mask, feeling her costumed confidence retreat a her normal self returned. "Sorry about just-"

Mizumi turned and hugged Ayika tightly. Their masks bumped together slightly as she spoke in to Ayika's ear. "I love it." The foreign girl spun around to take in the view down both directions of the long canal. She let out a brief laugh of pure excitement at the general expanse of the night and the energy around them.

Ayika's cheeks faintly hurt with this smile but she couldn't have stopped if she wanted to, even when she realized the other bridge-crossers were still watching them. In that moment an ignored sense tickled at her awareness. She now looked, actually looked, at the masked figures who were standing on this bridge with them. Her breath caught in her chest as an icy shiver raced through her core. Masks did not get as good as these. Nor did they allow permit the light of distant lanterns to come flickering through your translucent body as these figures demonstrated.

Ayika and Mizumi were the only true humans on this bridge. The Festival of Veils was when spirits could walk openly through this world and here they were. But strangely Ayika seemed to be the only one who noticed. Mizumi continued to marvel at the passing boats in blind ignorance of the nature of the other travelers that shared their view.

Ayika turned to the nearest spirit. Her heart pounded as she stepped forward to place her body front of Mizumi. The spirit had the face of a beautiful woman, but shiny and plated like the back of an ornamental beetle, shimmering with greens and purples. Her eyes sparked like faceted gems. Ayika, lost for what else to do, bowed very slightly. The spirit stared on in silence. Then she returned the bow and her iridescent robes shifted to reveal that they were attached to her back like dragonfly wings. The spirit then turned and walked on down the bridge and off into the winding streets of the Kuang Harbor. The other pressing spirits, in all their many colors, separated as well, drifting down the street or simply stepping off the bridge to walk unconcerned across the surface of the water. Ayika couldn't help shiver as the magnitude of the task she had taken on came back to her with new intensity.

Mizumi had noticed a change in Ayika's mood. She turned around and looked at the iridescent beetle woman walking off. To Ayika's surprise her gaze traced the spirit's movement exactly. "Well, I guess some people are content with just a simple green mask. I suppose that fulfills the function but it does not seem to be in the spirit of this holiday, does it? Why not go all the way?"

Ayika whipped back to search Mizumi's eyes. They were genuine. She had seen the beetle woman as a normal human wearing a simple mask. The Festival changed the rules apparently, but even when the spirits walked openly they still held secrets. Mizumi saw this confusion and tried to reassure Ayika.

"Don't worry. I am sure we can prevent Mua from doing anything disastrous. After all, she will probably not even be able to get through the Inner Ring gate and our job will already be done! An invitation clearly made out to the Fire Nation Embassy staff can only get her so far. Then we will just have a night where we enjoy a party and eat all of that hateful Erliao's food."

Now Mizumi took Ayika's hand. The merchant's daughter's hand was soft, but now Ayika could feel faint calluses where the writing brush had pressed against her skin for long hours. There were other little faint ridges as well, the signs of martial training? She didn't know.

Ayika looked up to meet Mizumi's eyes behind that gold mask she wore. Then Ayika found herself giggling faintly at the absurdity of all this. There were spirits in the streets that only she could identify, she was trying to stop a deadly water-bender from killing a man who hated her race, while the city was being pushed towards chaos by powerful men in magic masks. Yet Mizumi was silently promising to protect her from all that and more that she couldn't even see. And Ayika believed her.

...

Mizumi frequently found herself disoriented in the unending urban landscape of this city. In the dark, even with the Wall looming in the distance, it was much worse. But she trusted Ayika to lead them to the entry gate and so she followed the native easily. She supposed it was odd that she thought of Ayika as an Earth Kingdom native. Strictly speaking of blood, the tribal girl was just as foreign to this land as Mizumi herself. But watching Ayika for even a moment revealed the lie of her skin. That girl owned this city.

Mizumi had noticed this confidence from the first time she saw Ayika. She possessed a solidity that said she was always oriented, always confident of where she stood. In defiance of blood, her roots led straight down to the stone in the earth. Even when she was afraid and unsure, she held a precise image of the world as it spread out around her and knew what was just and what was necessary. Mizumi missed feeling like that. Since her father had moved her to this country a year ago she had been cut adrift from the world she knew, a flying paper lantern buffeted by every breeze as it burned its way into the featureless sky. Everything was simply too big here and despite her eduction she understood far too little.

The brick-paved road on which they traveled now transitioned to another broad stone bridge over a broad foul smelling river. Then, as Mizumi casually glanced to the side, she was seized with a sudden sense of disorientation. For a moment she could not understand what was causing her vertigo but then she looked over the bridge railing at the water below and realized she was instead looking down at the dry roofs of buildings. The drained Kuang riverbed was beneath her. Ayika saw Mizumi wobble as if beginning to lose balance so she turned to her with concern. But Mizumi was already laughing at the sudden ridiculousness of her own reaction. As she laughed Mizumi realized that she must have been carrying more tension in her tonight than she had realized and now she was letting some of it out. They had arrived above the sunken neighborhood of the Bed.

Ayika managed to look at their surroundings with a stranger's eyes and noticed what had happened. "Ha! Yeah, strange waters here. Welcome to the Bed, sort of. My home town as it were. Don't lose your step." She made a brief mime of swaying to fall on the flat street-stones, and then immediately stopped and blushed deeply in mortification at having just joked about Mizumi's moment of confusion. Mizumi had to join in the good-natured mockery with a grin to show she did not begrudge Ayika the familiarity at all.

Reassured, Ayika took the opportunity to point out some personal landmarks as they continued across the bridge that apparently connected one part of the Harbor Town to what had once been an island in the now absent river and was now a raised respectable neighborhood in the middle of a slum. That the light of the bridge lanterns only reached a few dozen meters and Mizumi could see nothing that Ayika was pointing at was not a bother at all. She found Ayika's enthusiasm adorable.

However, when Ayika was looking off in another direction to point out where the Bao brothers' house was located Mizumi could not help but frown a little behind her gold mask. The homes below them were very poor. She had known, of course, that Ayika's family represented something close to the bottom of the societal structure in this city, but to hear her nonchalantly describe the daily threat of flooding and collapsing construction was something else. Mizumi smelt the foul odors rising up from that soggy depression where hundreds if not thousands of families made their homes shook something in her heart. She looked at the gold thread fringe on her costume sleeve and her gold bracelet and tried to think how Ayika would have interpreted the outfits she had selected. Did Ayika think she was rubbing in the fact of her relative wealth? Had she poisoned this night with an undercurrent of resentment?

But when she looked back to Ayika, Mizumi could not believe that. Tonight Ayika wore a smile that was beautiful and wicked. In moments of crisis Ayika always burst forth into something Mizumi had never encountered before in all the upperclass daughters of two countries. And tonight, behind that flimsy paper mask painted silver, Ayika had blossomed again. Ingrained gestures of subservience that Mizumi had not even noticed before had now fallen away. As they made their way down the bustling nighttime streets and cut through hidden side alleys and bridges over tiny stone channels flowing with water the other woman would sometimes suddenly draw close and Mizumi found herself surprised to remember that Ayika was several centimeters shorter than her. This woman projected height by force of personality. Mizumi breathed out and felt a shiver of relaxation travel down her spine. It was fun to give up control and trust herself completely to another's protection.

Ayika did in fact seem very protective tonight. More than perhaps was reasonable. Mizumi began to watch her friend more closely and noticed that Ayika now and then became serious, moving to walk slightly closer as they passed some innocuous costumed pedestrian. There was no indication Mizumi could see as to why those people in particular were chosen. These were not threatening looking figures and no one showed any sign to indicate they were involved with the conservatives. In fact, half the time Mizumi's eye would have drifted past them unseeing if Ayika had not displayed her strange reaction.

Mizumi halted her thought process to examine that last observation. They were in fact very hard to notice. She decided to investigate. The next time she felt Ayika casually begin to walk closer and slightly in front of her, Mizumi focused her attention on the plain man walking opposite them on the street. He looked like any other city dwelling celebrant and his costume was a simple yellow mask and some paper streamers on his clothes. In fact he was so normal that Mizumi had to fight the impulse to look away within a second. If she had, she would not have noticed that his arm passed straight through the outthrust edge of a peddler's goods tray as if the solid wood was made of mist.

Mizumi was fumbling inside the sleeve of her dress to grasp at what she had hidden there before she even noticed that she had never let out her last breath. Ayika noticed too. She turned to look at Mizumi and said:

"Ah, you saw them."

The man in the yellow mask continued his way down the path completely ignoring the impossibility he had just committed. Other pedestrians casually parted around him in a common curtesy which Mizumi now realized was not that common in on the streets of this city. Then the man stopped, turned and glanced back. For a second, under Mizumi's intense inspection, there was a suggestion of something like vines about him. Then he was normal again and walking along the street again. Mizumi looked back at Ayika and widened her eyes still further in shock at Ayika's lack of surprise. Then she made the the connection. Ayika could always see spirits and tonight, it seemed, so could she.

Mizumi made an effort to render her voice casual and disguise her hints of hyperventilation. "So. On the night of the Festival of Autumn Veils the spirits walk among humans. Mama Mua had mentioned that. That is certainly...something."

Ayika smiled guiltily. "Yeah, I've been seeing them everywhere since the sun set. I knew I should have told you but I-"

"No, is ok. Spirits. Yes." Mizumi felt she was not at her most eloquent right now but at this moment she was having flashbacks to her foreign language instructor and the flashcards she had produced. Her proud fluency did not seem to be standing up well against this. "But this is normal. By cause of the festival, yes? The spirits walking is not the bad consequence of the Masks activity Mama Mua said she was warned about?"

Their walking path now crossed back over a second bridge above the Bed. Ayika answered, deep in thought. "No, from what the fire spirit said I think we'd notice that. But I'm not sure this is entirely normal. Grandma Aka told me about the stories of the festival even if she resented me celebrating the kingdoms' holidays more than those of the People, er, the Tribes. But she always made it sound like it was an outside chance to see a single spirit walking these streets tonight. I must've already seen thirty! This has to be about the weakening of the walls to the spirit world. The spirit in the fire had said that it's getting easier for them to cross over these days. I suppose that on a day when the whole city sends out an entreaty the effect would only be magnified."

Mizumi nodded along uncertainly although she was not sure Ayika was actually talking to anyone other than herself. Mizumi tried to remember what little education she had received on spiritual matters back home in the Nation or here from the sermons of Fire Sage Huitzlan.

"Your festival of veils signals welcome to the spirits. However, we are still months from the solstice so there is no chance of them sealing people away to the spirit world, is there not?" She then gave up and returned to things she might have a more firm grasp on. "Is Mama Mua gathering spirit fighters again like you say she did the night of the riot? I only say because when I estimated that she would not be able to gain full entrance to Erliao's party I was not thinking of a force of spirit allies. The minister may be in more danger than I had assumed." She remembered the fight in the fog. She'd only seen Mua in her barehanded attack. Yet Ayika said that the street had been swarming with spirits Mua had convinced to help her. Mizumi shuddered. How could she fight something she could not see? But tonight she could see the spirits in some limited way. Mizumi was not sure that provided any comfort.

"Maybe." Then Ayika glanced up at the drooping branches of a willow tree that had managed to work its way up through the perpetually paved ground of this stone city and squeeze its trunk between two walls of grey brick. A thought flitted across her face and she smiled at the corner of her mouth. "Tonight the spirits are out walking. But I think I know someone who won't be going anywhere. Someone who might help. Let's see if he'll talk to us. We're almost to Gold Toad Square."

...


	45. Flowers

...

Night had fully landed but this evening the Middle Ring blazed so bright that Xinfei was not sure he could have told the difference without looking up at the black sky. What had to be just about the sum total of lanterns ever made by man was blazing. Lights were burning out of every window and from every lamppost in a twinkling riot that slowly streamed past him as he and Lili made their bumping and jostling way along the streets in the back of the rickshaw. Xinfei felt mortified that Lili had insisted on flagging this vehicle. He knew rickshaw pullers down in Kuang Harbor. If his family had been in the position to finance purchase of a rickshaw he might have been one himself. At least he'd been able to convince Lili not to hire a palanquin or carriage, although the fact that she had quickly agreed that the rickshaw would "be more fun tonight" did raise some concerns in him.

Lili yanked Xinfei by the shoulder to pull him up a bit. He had slid down in the seat hoping to attract less attention and that costume she grasped him by was another source of his discomfort. The most significant portion of it was as vest that was actually as ill-fitting as what he wore when working down at the docks. It stopped abruptly halfway down to expose most of his abdominals. Poor Lili couldn't bare to admit that she must have badly misguessed the measurements and instead said that it was working as intended, with a little smile that Xinfei didn't trust at all. To top it all off the costume vest was ridiculously ornate, replete with shiny metal looking thread and bright patches puffed up to look like enormous jewels all the way up to where it flared out above his shoulders like some Islander prince's armor. It was made of a thick warm material but was still insufficient in area for the time of year and hour of night. At least Lili had included baggy trousers of some thick shinny yellow material and shaggy brown arm-wraps that fit around his forearms and biceps. The ridiculous display was topped off with a gold colored hat and a mask patterned like fur. Lili said he looked like the Warrior Monkey that was the glorious hero of so many legends. Xinfei said his shoulders were cold.

Still he had to admit, no matter how absurd he looked it didn't appear that he was likely to be the object of anyone's attention up here. The Middle Ring did the festival...energetically. These merchants, traders, and landlords were usually so preoccupied with acting like they were Inner Ring nobles that there was not much life to be seen. Tonight that did not seem to be a problem.

The streets were full and every door had been flung open, spilling forth the sound of riotous celebration. The costumes here were beyond anything he had ever seen in the town or in the Lower Ring on previous years. Compared to some of them, Xinfei was positively overdressed. From the open gate of a mansion flanked on each side by marble statues, a woman stumbled out backwards while laughing. Her dress glittered like scales and was patterned as a school of leaping fish. A rather overfished school, Xinfei observed with reddening cheeks as she grabbed hold of the rickshaw side for support while it was temporarily stopped in traffic. The woman lazily turned and looked into Xinfei's eyes through her line-thin mask as she exhaled the scent of perfume, makeup, and rich wine. She started to sway forward when suddenly Lili reached across Xinfei's chest to push her away with a palm to the face. The woman made no complaint and instead started laughing again as she swayed back towards whatever party she had been attending in the mansion.

Xinfei's throat worked up and down as Lili extricated herself from being practically in his lap. Finally, he managed to say:

"Wow, that was the most expensive prostitute I have ever seen."

He was inwardly kicking himself in the most vigorous fashion for being stupid enough to start talking about prostitutes until he happened to look at Lili. She had a hand politely over her mouth but it did not hide the grin wide enough that it threatened to split her face.

Her delicate eyebrows waggles expressively as she said, "Well, maybe she was. But I'm pretty sure I recognize her. She looks like the wife of the district tax collector. And that was his house. Now what was their family name? Yunlong or...?"

Xinfei swiveled in his seat to look back. That was a tax collector's wife? Now he was looking at all the costumed revelers on the streets not for fear of them realizing what he was but in astonishment that he couldn't tell who they were. Everyone was hidden. Behind his monkey mask, Xinfei watched the city's rich come unglued as their driver pulled them on through the tall ornamental gate to the university neighborhood.

The Ba Sing Se Royal University was an ancient institution. Over its centuries of existence it had grown and expanded in that peculiar manner of colleges in dense urban areas. As the value of land at the edge of the university increased by virtue of proximity, outward expansion became unfeasible. So the campus grew by hops and jumps, each time purchasing new lower-priced territory outside the belt of desirable property that developed around it. Occasionally a piece of gifted property added a new outlying star to the constellation. The school lands now formed a long archipelago stretching across a ten degree arc of the Middle Ring, cleaving near to the central transverse tram line. However, to residents of this sector of the city where both Lili and Xinfei lived at opposite extremes, 'The University' meant this the nearest and newest outgrowth.

Of course 'new' was a relative word in Ba Sing Se. This satellite and much of the construction around it was almost one hundred and fifty years old, dating from before the war. Xinfei and Lili rolled by courtyard walls that showed three generations of brick in places where the roots of aged trees had over the years lifted and twisted the foundations to the point of collapse. In honor of the holiday, the lamps of the university buildings were extinguished, giving this shady quarter an unusually dark cast on the illuminated night when the rest of the city was ablaze. However, the few oasis of light in restaurants or dwellings shone forth like land-bound suns. It was a good night for business; few were as prepared to celebrate a day off as college students were.

Xinfei was starting to wonder if they were going to make this poor rickshaw operator pull them in a complete circuit of the city when suddenly their vehicle made a sharp right. This new street was more occupied than those nearer the university buildings but Xinfei was starting to feel that this was might not be a neighborhood that a girl like Lili should be in. There were a lot of rather drunk young men parading down the sides with their arms linked around their shoulders for mutual support. He decided to double check the destination with Lili.

"So the address you gave him was those guys' apartment building? The protesters?"

Lili gave him a pitying look. "It took me four days to find trace of these men. Do you really think I waited that long to check if they were just sleeping in their dormitories? No, but I did find where they were hiding. You just worry about serving our introductions. You're the one who has met them before after all!"

Xinfei made a vague noise of agreement. He'd spoken with Zhangyi and the others on several occasions, it was true. But he was not sure how favorable an impression those meetings had left in their minds. Still, the right pitch can make any sale so he put his mind to coming up with a perfect wording to not get punched in the face. He was still involved in that mental struggle when the wheels under them ground to a halt in front of a building that should really have attracted his attention sooner. Xeinfei was stepping out of the rickshaw by pure reflex before he noticed that this establishment seemed rather more house-like than a hotel and made far too little noise to be a wine-house. There were no windows on the street side of the first floor and those on the second had painted paper screens over them. From inside came the sound of women laughing in something very close to synchronization. On the air were drifting notes of an erhu and some other tinkling strings.

Xinfei felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. The student nationalists had been sleeping somewhere that would not present guest lists even to Public Safety. A thought finally clicked. The harbor was a very different place from up here but there were always establishments, even by the Kuang, with pretensions. The industry existed to serve a fantasy didn't they? And some signs were universal. But how on earth would he break it to a sheltered rich girl?

"Um, Lili? Now, when your source told you where those guys were staying what exact words did she use to describe the place? Because I think you might have gotten it..."

Lili popped up at his side and glanced up at the unfortunate building through her green lace mask. "No, that looks like the right brothel." She must have heard the little choking sound Xinfei made because she then turned her eyes on him along with a sly smile. "What? Did you think I wouldn't recognize a sing-song house? Please, we _are_ by the university. You'd be harder pressed to not find one. From what I've heard a madam was the one who recently bought out the old dean's building."

Lili took a few steps towards the colorful front gate and looked back to see Xinfei standing motionless and beet red. "Really Xinfei, I didn't think you were so sheltered. Come along!"

Xinfei supposed that he just had to resign himself to being executed by Mister Gaoli after tonight. With that decided he hurried up to the gate after her. The rickshaw driver just shook his head and hefted up the poles of his vehicle. At least it would be easy for him to find another fare around here.

As Xinfei and Lili entered this house of enthusiastic repute the first thing that struck Xinfei was how normal it seemed. In the front parlor there was a man sitting with one foot up on a chair and a pipe in his land. At his side was seated a pretty and well-dressed young woman who was currently whispering something to a manservant who leaned down behind her while carrying a tray. Xinfei and Lili hadn't been over the threshold for more than a moment when a well-made-up woman in her late thirties suddenly swept into existence in a rush of silk.

"Good evening, honorable gentleman and lady. I am Madam Zhao and welcome to my house. Please, may I offer you refreshment here in the parlor?"

The proprietor did not blink an eye at a young woman such as Lili entering like this. Such events were an unfrequent but not to be overlooked part of the establishment's livelihood.

Lili shook her head, declining the offer. "I am sorry, perhaps another time. We actually received an invitation from Zhangyi Mao. Are he and his friends upstairs?"

Madam Zhao looked much less enthusiastic now, though her smile never slipped. Obviously the student nationalists were not the high paying customers she hoped for. "Ah, of course. I am afraid one of the servants must have forgotten to tell me to await your coming. Shuangzhu! Lead our honorable guests to the second sitting-room."

Xinfei jumped slightly as another young woman in a pearlescent white dress flitted into the room and silently directed them to a staircase leading up to the floor above. Upstairs they were in a narrow hallway with several doors opening off it. The first portal revealed wisps of pipe smoke drifting from a room where three men sat around a table with an equal number of beautiful women scattered between them. The sounds of clicking game tiles and soft feminine laughter spilled out along with the sounds of the instruments that Xinfei had heard from the street. The second room had no pretty girls but instead was occupied by six impassioned looking young men in black and white student's uniforms working on what could not have been their first bottle of wine as they growled at each other. At one end of the room's table were Zhanyi and the other two student nationalists Xinfei knew but the rest were strangers; rather angry strangers.

One unfamiliar young man finished his drink in a deep draught and thumped the cup down onto the table. He pointed across the small room at his fellow who was leading the discussion.

"Hey Zhangyi, you can't be losing your nerve now. Just look at the support we're finally getting!" He gestured vaguely in the direction of the paper screen covering the room's window. "It's fine if you want to lay low for a few days, and after what you managed on the Fifth Hill you deserve it, but the rest of us need to be taking action! The Lower Ring is up in arms over the curfew and tram restrictions. The Porcelain Guild alone is doing more that we've done in a week! Even if those men are craftsmen they're still benders, they carry weight. We need to make our move too, and tonight the holiday gives us the perfect chance!"

Zhangyi did not look as smooth and handsome as he usually did. Instead, he looked tired and increasingly irritated. "Look, I'm still the student organization president and I have just recently received a communication from-"

The first man waved his hand dismissively. "President? Oh, lay off it. Since when have those positions mattered? As soon as the society started getting money from that 'secret source' you were under that Li guy's thumb. Then he disappeared and the Initiated took over with their secret masks and sense of style. I care you,re president as much as I care that fat Jiang over there is secretary."

Jiang objected to this sudden insult. "Hey! I'm just sitting here."

"Well, we're going to make some noise! We're going to... Who's that?"

Xinfei had been awkwardly standing in the doorway, unnoticed, for quite a while now. Now that all these men focused their eyes on him he wished he was unnoticed again. He knocked against the wooden doorframe in an entirely useless gesture and said, "Um, Zhangyi? Jiang? Um, er," He struggled to remember the third name. "...Chonglong!"

No recognition passed over their faces and many of the student nationalists were beginning to rise. The muscular Chonglong in particular rose like a menacing monolith breaking from the ocean depths. Xinfei swallowed. They'd forgotten about him, and secret political conspiracies did not appreciate unknowns showing up at their hiding spots.

Even the normally gregarious Zhangyi wore a dark look and his brow was furrowed in deadly seriousness. "It would be best for you to identify yourself quickly, friend. We would regret to.-"

Suddenly, Xinfei remembered something he really should have thought of much earlier. He was still wearing a costume. He hurriedly whipped off the brown mask and yellow hat, almost panting at his own stupidity. Zhanyi blinked in sudden surprise.

"Dockworker guy? What are...oh, wait, it was...um. Shinfei!" He was clearly proud to have remembered that name.

"Er, Xinfei. Right." Xinfei offered his little correction as he struggled to control his breathing. He had almost gotten himself killed by a bunch of toffs because Lili had insisted on this damn monkey costume. He mentally pushed away the thought that a reasonable person should have remembered the mask a little sooner.

The other nationalists did not become friendly quite as quickly. Jiang narrowed his eyes at Xinfei and took note of the feminine shadow in the hallway behind him. "Hold on, Zhangyi. Xinfei, how exactly did you know where to find us?" Even Zhangyi's enthusiasm darkened at that.

Xinfei gulped. He did not know how to answer that. He had barely understood Lili's explanation of what had actually happened, let alone knew how to fabricate a convincing lie. Everyone knew that the government had spies everywhere. How did he go about proving that he wasn't one of them?

A soft hand suddenly pushed rather firmly against his upper arm. Lili gently shoved him aside as she entered the meeting room. "That would be my doing." She planted one foot in front of her and almost struck a pose. "I am Yushui Song and I understand you boys are working to take our country back."

Lili Gaoli was rather tall for a woman and tonight in her green lace armor and her three quarters mask she managed to dominate the room in a moment. Her vibrant costume, rather than looking ridiculous in contrast with the dour uniforms of the students, instead lent her authority. Xinfei was confident that the same force was not benefiting him with his brown furry armbands and ridiculous yellow hat. Lili stood her ground in front of the doorway, slowly sweeping her gaze over the young nationalists. Xinfei was not actually sure how she managed to hold that motionless pose for long enough for her pronouncement to land. From what he'd seen of her she had to be internally shaking from pent up motion after the first few seconds.

Xinfei assumed that the false name Lili had chosen was just a random alias. After all, these boys had recently led a mob against her family so such precautions were reasonable. However, the assembled students seemed to find more meaning in it. At the head of the table Jiang frowned slightly.

"Yushin Song?" one boy whispered. "Isn't that the name of district administrator De'an Song's daughter?"

"I don't know. But I have heard rumors that the administrator's a silent backer of the nationalist faction. I mean it's plausible but no one I know has ever seen his daughter so I-"

Lili interrupted, "Well, tonight that lapse is remedied! And do not fear for the security of your meeting." She winked. "The Initiated do not give out locations lightly. So, what was it Zhangyi was saying about receiving some communication? That sounded very interesting. Is this seat being occupied by anyone? No? Great! Xinfei, no need to lurk in the door all night, come sit down."

The student nationalists were blinking with what Xinfei had come to recognize as the traditional reaction to meeting the conversational whirlwind known as Lili Gaoli. Lili, for herself, settled down onto a chair and proceeded to serve herself a small cup of the wine from the center of the table. She sipped the drink with a small grimace of mild dissatisfaction.

The group of young men were clearly very unsettled by having a woman sit down among them. Xinfei felt the distant urge to roll his eyes. These guys were holding their meetings in a whorehouse and still insisted on acting like prudes. The rich would never fail to infuriate him. Well, maybe the rich other than Lili. She seemed to be doing well for herself. He lowered himself down beside the place at the table she'd claimed with elaborate care.

One of the unknown nationalists finally recovered his wits. "Woah, all right, hold on!" He pointed angrily at Zhangyi, Jiang, and Chonglong. "I recognize the girl's name but who's this guy? If you know him then why have I not ever seen him before? This is the kind of stupid careless stuff that gets you disappeared by Public Safety!"

Zhangyi had suffered quite enough of his comrades questioning him. "Xinfei joined us in our struggle weeks ago."

Chonglong did not look happy about this intrusion but he gave a rough grunt of confirmation as he drained the remainder of his drink.

With a nod to Chonglong, Zhangyi continued. "He was there with us at the Fifth Hill. In fact once things started getting out of hand he managed to do something that got the crowd focused again on dispersal. If everyone had stayed packed up in the top square we all would have been nabbed when the guards came to close down the district."

Down near the head of the table Jiang muttered down towards the cup sitting in front of him. "Not to mention the casualties that were prevented." Never the less most of the room heard him. It was clear he was not only talking about casualties on their side. Chonglong gave him a look of disgust for this perceived sentimentality and weakness. That look was shared by several others of the young men. The politics involved here were getting more merciless by the day.

"And it is wonderful that he did," Lili interjected. When she drew looks her eyebrow arched invisibly behind her silk mask. "Really. You've seen the political favors that Islander dog has managed to trick the ministers into accepting since that night. You can guess very well whose money bought them. If any more city merchants had been harmed things would only be worse and Trade Representative Tailang would have even more of the king's men tucked in his purse." She had an advantage in this conversation. Most of these young men were so thrown off by the presence of a pretty woman holding her own as an equal that they accidentally promoted her to a position above themselves by principle of sheer novelty.

The student nationalists collectively grumbled in reluctant agreement. The conflict they desired was one of black and white; domestic tradition and insidious foreign sabotage. However, they'd come to recognize that the truth of their fight was different. Both sides were mixed and muddled. Finally, one called on their nominal president to say whatever he had intended before Lili's invasion.

"Uh, ok." Zhangyi said absently, trying to recover from this shift in the energy. "Right. Ok." After few moments it seemed that it would be easier to just accept that Lili, or rather Yushin, was now part of this meeting and move on. "Yes. I received a letter here last night, slipped though the crack of my window. It is from Initiated."

Jiang muttered softly to himself. "It was an old authentication codeword."

"It was the _oldest_." Zhanyi said with special emphasis. "That lays significance to its importance. With all the new Initiated being raised these days that first code shows that this is one of those who has been with us from the beginning!"

"All those new people given masks and not a single one of us. Disgraceful."

"Not the time, Chonglong."

"The Initiated are requesting a meeting. Clearly the top leadership recognized who organized the march against the Fifth Hill. I'll admit that in recent weeks the Students Coalition for National Action has seen some declining responsibility in favor of the Initiated's private action but that is about to change! I'm going to ensure that we're at the forefront of the battle to preserve our culture once again! We will lead the voices of the people in a song of triumph that even the King of Kings will hear!"

Zhangyi stood up and thumped his palms firmly on the table in an enthusiastic demonstration of conviction. He expected his comrades to join their voices in cheering. Instead the only reaction was a polite round of clapping from Lili and several other skeptical looks.

At the other end of the table, one of the students was particularly unconvinced. "So you're running off to have a powwow with one of the masked Initiated? All right, but what does that have to do with us? I say the rest of us should use tonight! Other parts of the organization are busy down there beyond the rings but we can cause some trouble up here. Make sure no one thinks we've run into hiding. Really rile people up! Damn it, if we're patriots then we need to make people remember that this holiday is about honoring our native culture, not just dressing up in foreign fashions!"

Once again, Jiang tried vainly to introduce some caution. "Are you sure that's a good idea? We might be under government surveillance already."

Chonglong rolled his eyes. "Come on, Jiang. If they're going to do something big, tonight's the night. Everyone's already out in disguises, how are the guards going to identify anyone? Right, let's do it!"

Zhangyi shook his head. "Chonglong, you and Jiang are coming with me. You two are the club leadership, it's important that you are there for the meeting."

One of the remaining boys sneered, "Yeah, all you go off and talk to the guys who really are your bosses." He turned to his fellows. "I say the rest of us head down to the Lower Ring . We've done a good job getting support form the working classes before. After all, it's their jobs at risk along with our sacred culture."

Another shook his head. "The Porcelain Guild has been organizing down there over the last week. Those earthbenders are nothing to trifle with even if they're on our political side. I say we leave well enough alone. Plus, my housekeeper said that things have been getting dangerous in the Lower Ring. Lots of fires and violent crime. I mean even more than those sort usually get up to."

"That's to be expected down there, isn't it? Still, you have a point." The would-be rabble-rouser turned to Lili who'd been watching Zhangyi and his two friends gather up their stuff and depart. They slid out of the room and Xinfei was faintly glad they were gone. "Miss Song? You must have access to some information from your father. What targets do you suggest?" Another student activist frowned to which the speaker raised his eyebrows with a faint shrug that suggested he was just being polite by asking for input from a woman.

They were both surprised when Lili stood up from her chair. She gave all the remaining nationalists a gentle smile that never the less contained mountains of disappointment and condescension.

"I'm afraid I must have made a mistake by coming here. I had been under the impression that your little branch of the movement was already committed to action. Instead you are all clearly content to argue the entire night away. If I hear that you have ever moved past debating in flower-houses, I will contact you again. Until then, loyalist resources must be more...carefully allocated. Come along, Xinfei, I think my night is over."

Lili did not wait for any of the nationalists to overcome their astonished outrage and open their mouths. Instead she swept out the door, just avoiding running over the small serving girl who had been waiting outside. Xinfei almost knocked over his chair in his struggle to quickly stand up and follow after her. The university students were still sitting open mouthed as their expressions slowly melted from astonishment to anger over Lili's dismissive attitude. Xinfei decided he wanted to be well gone by the time they finished that phase shift.

"Um, happy holiday?" he said as he exited.

A second later he darted back in to grab his monkey mask from where he'd left it on the table. He opened his mouth to vaguely apologize, but one glance at those faces sent him racing out after Lili.

Luckily, she was waiting for him on the stairs. She had that much sense at least.

He slid up next to her and said, "I suppose there's no chance you actually are heading home?"

She looked up at him incredulously. "You heard that Zhangyi guy, they're meeting with the top Initiated right now! This is the guy behind all this! We're following them!"

Xinfei found himself smiling involuntarily as he quickly slid his monkey mask back on and made sure his ridiculous round yellow cap was secure. On the first floor they exited the establishment, his heart beating loud in his chest and a girl at his side. Or rather in front of him. And now farther in front of him. Xinfwi quickened his step to catch up with Her before he lost sight her completely in the crowd of other people out on these tree-lined city streets. Lili could really dart when she wanted.

They made their way down the street under the multicolored light of paper festival lanterns strung across the paved stretch, now crowded with pedestrians. There was music and laughter but Xinfei knew that under it all was still a steady current of hostility and frustration. He saw a few glares directed at those dressed in the most modern fashions, which up here meant Fire Nation fashions. There was a little less mixing among groups of partiers than he would have expected. Those foolish students were right. It wouldn't take much to turn this city against almost anyone. He didn't see what he and Lili could do to stop that but he also knew he was just going to have to follow her to find out. Maybe he could at least save one life.

...


	46. Toad

...

Ayika and Mizumi crossed the little arching stone bridge over the thin water channel that demarcated one side of Gold Toad square. There were fewer people walking the streets in this part of the town, human or spirit. Ayika could see that Mizumi was nervous, no matter how she tried to hide it. Behind that sparkling gold mask she slitted her eyes suspiciously at anyone who got too close to them. When the night suddenly echoed with the staccato bangs of firecrackers from down the street one of her hands shot reflexively into her opposing sleeve. Ayika had noticed this gesture earlier; Mizumi had something concealed in there but Ayika declined to press the question. She was nervous about confronting Mua but, however carrying bladed weapons was too dangerous for anyone who did not live partially under the protective umbrella of an ambassadorial mission. She was fine with one of them having some defense.

Ayika steeled herself as she approached the carved stone well in the center of the open space. At the edges of this old cobbled square some of the buildings spilled forth a few small local parties but they were a good distance away and not concerned with two girls wandering in the dark. Ayika had been having an internal argument for the last five blocks with the significant portion of herself that said she was behaving like a fool. They suspected that Mama Mua was on her way to murder a government minister and she was dawdling around here trying to impress some girl with stories half remembered from her grandmother and an incomplete understanding of whatever spiritual power she might or might not have.

"A spirit lives here? In this square?" Mizumi was curious. "And I chose this location as our first meeting place! Is that why it is called Golden Frog Square?"

"Toad," Ayika corrected as she glanced around to make sure no one was was near enough to see her possibly make a fool of herself. There were plenty of lanterns and candles shining out the windows around the square but somehow instead of illuminated the space they only caused the shadows stretching across the whitewashed walls and tiled roofs to darken and grow more suspicious.

Mizumi furrowed her brow. "Frog, toad. There is a difference between those words?"

"Maybe I should handle the talking with this spirit."

Grandma Aka had told stories of the powerful spirit Gold Toad. It was said that he mediated exchange of information and services between humans and the population of spirits that had made a permeant or semipermanent home in the material world of the city. There were many stories of the spirit providing help but a general theme had been that helpful was not the same as friendly. Or generous. It was at this moment that Ayika remembered something she should have thought of before.

"Shoot!"

"What?" Mizumi spun around, suddenly at the ready to attack. "What is it?"

"Oh, um, sorry. The standard rules of exchange apply for this spirit too and I've heard this one has expensive taste. Plus he probably knows about matches already. I just realized I don't have anything to give." To attract the attention of a spirit required an offering. Everyone in the knew that but Ayika had forgotten in her eagerness to appear powerful in front of Mizumi. It was never a good idea to let a spirit choose its own price. "In the main story the crane paid with two flawless jades but that's not particularly helpful to us right now. He's also supposedly in love with the moon but that's no use either. Just let me think of some-"

"It likes jade? Would this work?" With that Mizumi abruptly leaned over and parted the embroidered cloth strips of her skirt to reveal her ankle. There was a little jade charm tied around there with a red braided string. Mizumi wobbled a little as she balanced on one foot to untie it.

"I bought this thing years ago as an exam charm and I suppose I simply fell into the habit of wearing it. However, I have gleaned from recent days that any true spirit charm is unlikely to be purchased from a shop which specializes in hand-fans. I willingly offer it as the sacrifice."

Smiling with success, Mizumi stood up and grasped Ayika's hand to place the charm inside it. Ayika looked down. The jade ring on that red string might be small but it was of a smooth uniform color. Ayika's family would have to stop eating for three days to afford such a thing. But She didn't say anything and instead just met Mizumi's eager smile. She also decided not to press the issue of referring to the spirit as an 'it'. They had their offering.

Ayika grasped the charm in both hands and moved over to the dark pit of the well. She closed her eyes as she concentrated on finding her spiritual center. She whispered words she knew Grandma Aka had used in spirit callings even if Ayika wasn't sure if they had any true power. Grandma had also told stories about Gold Toad, but she's also told stories of the Scissors Man, a spirit Ayika was sure she'd just made up. Ayika realized she really should have asked more questions when she still had the chance. In any case, tonight at least she seemed to be having more trouble avoiding spirits than getting spirits to appear so this half-cocked effort might actually have a chance of succeeding. She had to try. With one last call out to Gold Toad in the Kingdoms' language she dropped the charm down the well. It instantly vanished into the dark with an answering plop.

Nothing happened. After a minute of waiting, Mizumi leaned back against the edge of the well as she peered out into the dark around the square, attempting to watch all angles of approach. "I wonder what it is that I will see? I could barely see the little fire man. Those people out walking who you said are spirits did not look of the other world to me. Yet you say you see something very different. Will I see this spirit as another normal man on the street?"

A deep booming voice rumbled from inches behind her. "You know, I should take both 'normal' and 'man' as insults."

Mizumi spun around and then opened her mouth in a sudden scream that never actually materialized in her throat. The entire opening of the well was now filled with an enormous amphibian whose cabbage-sized eyes had been centimeters behind Mizumi's headdress. Two fat but muscular arms hooked over the well's lip securing the rest of the toad's bulging bulk from sliding back down. His lumpy damp skin shone like gold, yet it was still so transparent Mizumi could see straight through him to the open front of a restaurant on the other side of the square. There were people eating there. They looked to be having a nice, normal evening, something that Ayika and Mizumi vaguely remembered as having once existed.

Ayika recognized that Mizumi was freezing up and so she stepped forward towards the spirit. Now that it had come to this moment she was not sure she was any more ready than Mizumi.

"Oh, great and honorable Gold Toad, thank you for answering our unworthy entreaty."

The massive spirit toad casually flicked a clawed hand and shrugged in his damp, flabby flesh. The missing leg he'd traded away was hidden from sight down in the well but he seemed to be holding himself up by his forelegs well enough."You have been lucky to catch me in a curious mood. Not many priests come down here these years and your fiery friend is a rarity here even in these centuries. Plus it is not as if I am going to get any rest tonight with both sides of the veil riled up for this wasteful festival."

Ayika was about to launch into her planned speech but then she stopped and frowned with puzzlement. "Wait, I thought a priest came to perform a ritual here every new year? I know that I heard one the neighborhood temples-"

Goad Toad's giant eyes flashed with anger. "Those humans? Those failed things? They can not SEE me and so they are not true priests! That the city would let such people even light incense for me is an insult I have long brooded over! Over this last century standards have fallen terribly on the human side!" Both Ayika and Mizumi took another step back but the spirit quickly quieted down. He seemed almost embarrassed by his outburst, as if he prided himself in displaying more reserve. "But what is it that you want? Let me guess, you want me to help you both hide away somewhere. Well, I can not pretend I haven't heard this story before. And at least you didn't have the bad taste to bring up that story with her ladyship the Moon. All right young priest, your talent could be of value to me so I can tell you the way to contact-"

Ayika broke in, "We have not had a chance to bring up anything! And we're not hiding anything! I came to ask you for some information of what is happening tonight."

Gold Toad blinked over his large bulbous eyes. They flicked back and forth between Ayika and Mizumi. "Hmm, times do change among humans I guess."

"What?"

The spirit shrugged again. "I really do not care. Come, tell me what it is you wish to know and I will see if it is something I am willing to tell you for so paltry an offering." He may have belittled the jade ring, but Ayika glanced down and could see it being slowly twisted and grasped in his webbed claws.

Ayika gave up on understanding every bit of the spirit's comments and just began what she had planned to ask. "There's a water tribe shaman named Nia Mua who lives near here. In the last few weeks she's been calling on many spirits to aid her for information and attacks. Tonight we fear she may be trying to do something...dreadful. She might be using spirits as some sort of weapon and if she-"

Gold Toad interrupted. "Ahh, the mist priest. I know of her. She has been bothering a lot of people by asking for favors she has not earned credit for. But you are incorrect in your claim of her being the one to welcome spirits across the veil as weapons. That is not her doing. And what little of the action is by her hand will likely soon be over. The shaman has now cashed in all favors save her last and most dearly earned. Tonight she just barely managed to convince a low rank spirit to go along with her and cast some charms in humans' minds to make them accept her where she needs to go. The whisper I heard said she wants to get into a party, hehe." Here he gave a brief yet deep throaty chuckle before dropping back into serious discussion. "Foolish petty humans. Such a waste of power to talk to one man."

Mizumi relaxed. "Oh, well that does not sound as bad as I had feared. They say she only wishes to talk to someone? And she only use her powers to ensure the Inner Ring does not turn her away despite the invitation? Last time she called out spirits into the street she was considerably more dramatic." She turned to Ayika. "Perhaps you misinterpreted her intentions towards Erliao. You did say that her words in the Exclusion were very vague. If she intended to kill him tonight would not honorable Mister Frog know about that?"

The spirit frowned at Mizumi once again mistaking his species. However, Ayika couldn't spend much time noticing that. Even as she remembered how spirits tended to not place much importance on human death, Erliao's death, she heard a subtle emphasis hidden in the middle of Gold Toad answer. There was some hidden communication there, volunteered information from a notoriously stingy authority.

She seized on that thread. "But there _is_ someone using spirits as weapons. Crossing them over. The Masks are doing that and it's upsetting the entire spirit world. Who's calling them? We both know that something's happening here. Please, this turmoil is hurting both worlds and if we're the only ones trying to stop it then quit these games and please tell us how to stop it!"

Her plea met an impassive amphibian stare. "That answer is worth far more than you paid. And I am not in the business of giving away free information. You would gasp to hear what that particular faction has been giving away in their power bargains. All while they fruitlessly search this city for the missing thrice stolen anchor. That anyone would knowingly agree to those terms is unbelievable, even for humans, even for the power given to them in exchange."

"Wait, anchor? What anchor?"

Gold Toad's eyes alternated sinking and rising in his face in a manner which made up for his not having eyebrows to waggle or a forehead to house them on. "Don't you worry about that. The young man beseeched me well to keep him hidden. Unlike some spirits, I deal plainly. I took payment and have rendered services." As proof the spirit reached one arm down into the well and plucked from somewhere a shiny metal disk that had presumably been given to him by this mysterious boy. Ayika had no idea what it was.

Mizumi suddenly spoke up in surprise. "Wait! That is a Fire Nation cremation charm! How did...Wait, that looks familiar."

Memory came crashing back go Ayika. She had seen that little disk before. "That was stolen from Professor Lizhen's office. Same night as the secret mask! That was the one thing the guards said was missing since they didn't know about that special package Ma'er gave the Professor. Wait, the guy had that package at the meeting. That means that the guy you hid must be er, um..." She wracked her memory to pull up the name she had just heard mentioned once or twice before. "Tian! Ma'er's missing assistant! When we saw him at the warehouse fire he was terrified."

Mizumi was watching Ayika with a frown as she struggled to follow this disjointed narrative but Ayika was caught up in her own surging thoughts. "Ok. The Initiated in the white mask killed Lizhen in the school when they were just supposed to steal back Ma'er's mask. That's what Tian said. Then Ma'er said Tian has been hiding from him ever since! Wait, the Masks are still looking for him? No, go back, what does Lizhen's mask do? Is that the anchor? What's an anchor in this? Why is that so important that the Initiated will kill over it?!" She was practically trembling as she stared at the spirit in desperation, her hands shaking with adrenaline.

Gold Toad just stared back impassively. His disguised helpfulness was at an end. "I have already given you the information you paid for. You will get nothing more out of me."

Mizumi was getting angry. "Now listen here honorable mister Frog of Gold." Ayika was starting to think she was doing that on purpose. "We know that the Masks are causing all sorts of trouble in the spirit world as well. They are damaging this city in both worlds. You must be worried too! You must tell us how to help!"

Ayika knew that this was the wrong attitude to take with a spirit like this but she remembered had her own questions as well. Questions about the Nine-Step-Omen of death. She cursed in her head that she'd gotten so caught up in being clever that she'd almost forgotten. She hurriedly began to say, "Wait, even if you don't answer that, just one more thing. Honorable sir, there's also a shadow spirit that has attached its self to one of us and-"

Gold Toad's patience was at an end. "I have had enough. Go get on to your party. If you hurry you will make it there before the other shaman. I know her chosen path." With that Gold Toad lifted up his arms and for a brief moment his translucent form caught the light of the lanterns behind him, transforming this spectral flesh into a shining monument of liquid metal that would have outdone the grandest mortal king in magnificence. Then with a slight squelching sound the toad slid back down into his well. There was no sound of him hitting the bottom. Ayika ran over to look over the lip but there was no sign of anyone inside. Only smooth dark water far below, faintly reflecting the silver moon.

"Grrr!" Mizumi growled to herself as she clenched her hands into fists. "Are spirits always that annoyingly unhelpful? I may have begun to understand how Mama Mua grew so angry if she has to speak with such creatures with any great frequency. He was just teasing us with tiny bits of information."

Ayika was more reflective. "I'm not so sure he was actually being unhelpful. I think he told us a lot more than he had too. There are rules for him too but I think he came very close to breaking them." As calm as she managed to sound, her heart still pounded as she mentally whipped herself for got getting even more out of him.

Mizumi opened her mouth to disagree but then closed it again. "Hmm. I suppose that the spirit did not need to show us the stolen cremation charm. Or mention this 'anchor', whatever it might have meant by that. Maybe it was trying to tell us something."

"And the last thing he said was that if we hurried we could reach Erliao's party before Mua arrived. I am not sure we should relax in our worries about her just now. He told us that for a reason."

Mizumi blinked. "Right. Then we should start moving. It does not appear that this spirit is going to pop out of his hole again for us to get any clearer information. We can board the tram line inside the Lower Ring just past the gate, correct?"

Ayika nodded and they set out together, crossing bridges over canals and they angled through the town towards the towering castle of the Craftsman's Gate and the entrance to the true city. The walk was not as pleasant as it had been before. The shadows seemed blacker. The night was still magical but now it was a dark and creeping magic, powerful but something beyond human control. The faint breeze blowing through the gate tunnel brought the odors of the Lower Ring, now tinged faintly with the smells of smoke and distant fire.

...

Xiaobao was enjoying the festival night. Xinfei had told him he was off somewhere selling something, Ayika was probably home watching after her little brother, and his mother was content to sit in her chair in the apartment with the door open so she could talk to passing revelers. With all the neighbors out on the street celebrating she'd be perfectly safe. Strangers didn't venture down into the Bed.

Tonight neither did Xiabao. He was up in the town near the Sweetwater aqueduct sitting on a crate at the street-corner where he and the two men beside him could look off down the five haphazardly arranged streets that met at this intersection. He was feeling good and that did not entirely stem from the little bottle of ricewine he now passed back to its nominal owner. How exactly Chouyu had gotten his hands on three bottles of imported Islander liqueur was perhaps best left to the imagination. Now was certainly not the time to press that issue. Xiabao scratched one finger under his black cloth mask stretching across the bridge his nose that. That thing was his compromise between the traditional colorful holiday costumes and the murmurings some of the neighborhood watch men had made about desiring uniforms. So far tonight there had been precisely nothing for the neighborhood watch to do, in uniform or not. He liked that.

Their chosen watch-post was in a rather quiet spot of the town There were groups of people walking by from time to time but many of the buildings that stretched out in front of them were businesses and small factories and thus not of much attraction on a holiday evening. In fact, Miohuito's train yard and factory complex down the street was probably one of the largest black spots in the town on this most illuminated night; a dark gap in the gleaming web of streets and squares. The dark warehouses were rather boring to look at compared to the colored flags and spirit lanterns which tonight decorated the rest of the city but since looking at anything else would require Xiaobo and the other two men to actually shift their position on their seats conversation remained focused on rumors about the Islander Industrialist.

Miohuito was not an unknown name in the Kuang Harbor. Even the proudly uninformed had heard by now about the foreigner's proposal to replace the earthbender-run trams with some sort of land-steamship. For a while the town had been flush with excitement for the prospect of the burst of new jobs promised by the promoters drawing their pay from the Exclusion. But then weeks became months, the people had remembered that anything new was not likely to happen quickly in this city. Even the Islanders seemed to learn to adjust their expectations towards the ministers' permit schedules. However, Li's cousin had managed to secure a job in the initial hiring blitz and Li was telling what he'd heard about the place.

"Zhonglin says that the boss's machine is all ready to go. There'd be a second one too but something got mixed up or broken in shipping and of course they're blaming us down with Gaoli for their missing engine. Of course, they've only been able to test the one they have for a quarter of a block or so since that is all the space they've got in that yard for the metal roads. But supposedly it'll be able to pull six tram cars or more once they get to put it up on!"

Chouyu was decades older and less entranced by new technology. "Sure, that's great. But if you've got a great big furnace pulling you along how on earth are you going to stop it? It,s not a person, how will it know where the stops are or is it just going to plow on all the way until it smashes into the King's palace?"

Li waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, they've got some way to slow it down. Something with water in metal pipes or something. Zhonglin was talking about hydo-rawlics, hydraltics, whatever that is. I mean, they do the rail system fine on the Islands without falling off the end into the sea so those foreign guys have to have something worked out." Finished with his speech, he held his hand out to Chouyu, signaling his willingness to take his turn with the bottle.

Chouyu instead took another swig himself. "Still, don't see it working better than the King's system now. I mean, sure, I get it, this uh train, the paddle-wheels can start pushing it along and if you oil the metal road enough it should be able to slide along up to speed. Ok. But come on, those foreigners only had to come up with that idea because their benders couldn't do it the normal way. And if you put this steam ship on wheels all the way up on the tram tracks away from the water the furnace is going to overheat in a moment." He finally gave in to Li's increasingly obvious gesturing and passed the bottle.

The younger man gratefully took a gulp and twisted his face at the bitter aftertaste as he tried to continue the conversation. "Zhonglin says it won't. But come on, isn't it good that it wouldn't run on benders? All those Islander's machines, you don't need any special power to use them. Look at those partnership factories they've set up across the Kuang!"

"Bah, cheap crap's what they make. A real craftsman'll make something that lasts twice as long."

"Yeah, at four times the price. And then there's all those uppity ringdwellers going on and on about protecting our cultural heritage. Ha! I've seen what their buying, all that high fashion. If you went up to the middle ring I bet the Fire Lord himself would think it was his country from how they're dressed."

Chouyu just made a grunting noise indicating that he didn't follow modern fashion and was proud of that. He reached over to grab back the bottle.

Xiaobao was letting the other two men carry the conversation for now and just focused on enjoying the night and the pleasantly warm feeling rising up from his stomach. Chouyu had been going on about how this Islander drink was supposed to be served hot but none of them had found the patience to set something like that up. Xiaobao thought the wine seemed to be doing its job just fine cold even if it did taste funny and foreign. He reached up to adjust his mask as the eyeholes had started to slide off-center again. His motion must have looked like a greeting to the young man with a coat covered in green and yellow paper streamers who was just rounding their corner at that moment. The man gave a head gesture to Xiaobao and flashed a smile as he headed off. Xiaobao watched him leave, privately noticing how the man's short-cut trousers showed off his calves quite nicely. Tonight was a good night.

Now there was someone else coming down one of the dark streets from the other direction. Xiaobao would admit that he and his watchmen were into their second bottle and his vision was starting to waver a little bit at long distances but he could still identify the shape of two people walking down the machine-shop street. He tried to think of where they could be coming from or going to that this path would have been a short cut. All the options seemed unlikely.

Then the two human shaped shadows stopped halfway down the street and crowded around a darker patch of wall that might have been a gate. There was a sudden small sound muffled by distance that never the less bounced down the empty street to Xiaobao's corner. It was the sound of something breaking and sure enough the two shadows disappeared within. A moment later more dark shapes were walking very quickly up the street to vanish behind the gate to Miohuito's complex.

There was no one who would be going into an empty machine yard after dark on a festival night. Those men were breaking in.

Xioabao looked at his companions. They had obviously noticed the same by now, but no one was anxious to say anything. They'd started this neighborhood watch to stop troublemakers but a lifetime of living in the Harbor Town had deeply ingrained habits of minding one's own business. And besides, the purpose of the watch was to protect their friends and families, not the property of people who they didn't even work for. Even if it did belong to a man whose enterprise supported their own and whose daughter had somehow become best friends with Ayika. This wasn't their responsibility. There was only one sensible thing to do.

Xiaobao sighed. Unfortunately there was also only one right thing to do. He turned back to his coworkers. "Chouyu, go run over to the nearest guards station and tell them about some men breaking into the Miohuito yard. Li and I will move closer to make sure they don't sneak off without anyone seeing where they went to." As an afterthought he grabbed Chouyu's arm and said, "Oh, and if you see any of the other guys on your way you might want to let them know we could need some help."

The older man murmured his agreement gratefully and set off into the night. Li looked a lot less grateful for being left behind, but he had the good grace not to say anything.

Xiaobao glanced around his immediate area and his eye landed on one of the empty bottles they'd been drinking. He bend down to grab it. If they accidentally got in some trouble with those burglars, well, the sight of a large man suddenly breaking the end of a bottle was generally regarded as effective intimidation. A broken bottle could also be thrown down on the ground to rapidly become much more broken and avoid anyone landing with weapon possession charges if the city guards materialized.

Xiaobao stopped rolling the bottle in his hand and looked up. Enough stalling. He pushed his black festival mask up until it stretched across his forehead like a headband. No hidden faces on their side. It was time to keep watch over the neighborhood. Together he and Li marched off against the night.

...


	47. Unmasking

...

"Three more fires in the Lower Ring and two additional break-ins tonight, one of which quickly became the third fire. No suspects apprehended. This is in addition to the unusually high number of disorder incidents even correcting for holiday trends. Agent Chang is also investigating a newly reported possible break-in but from an initial glance it seems to follow the new pattern we have been seeing in that area."

Inspector Yang nodded as his agent bowed and retreated back to the rear of the room. This was the third such report from the patrols this night. The lower twenty-sixth radial sector was going mad. If Yang was mentally plotting the other reports correctly, then the disturbance of the last few weeks was now spilling over from the Lower Ring into the Middle Ring and the Kuang Harbor, the pattern utterly ignoring the walls and placement of the gates. The festivals were always an unpleasantly chaotic time but there was something different tonight. There was a viciousness in the air. The agent who had just finished giving his report sported a nasty red scratch on his cheek. A woman had lashed out at him when he moved in to stop a potential political demonstration. The agent had of course broken her arms before she was sent off to the holding caverns, but the fact that a citizen had struck an Agent of Public Safety at all was incredible. Something was wrong, this was more than the unusual civic discontentment. People were acting unpredictably, even from the perspective of the Agency. For Yang this was the most unsettling factor.

The Inspector looked at the reports on his desk once again. At first glance those break-ins in the Lower Ring did not seem at all related but Yang saw a thin thread of connection. They were not neat affairs. Gouges in the floors, twisted metal, things smashed through walls, and the odd fatality. If his agents had been as ready to include hearsay in their reports as the city guards were then Yang was sure he would see mention of masked 'monsters' there too. Someone was using this holiday as cover to tear apart the Lower Ring looking for something. And they were not being gentle about it. His men were as well deployed as their numbers allowed and their response times had managed to get down to a matter of minutes but still no suspects had yet been apprehended.

Yang remembered what pensioner Ma'er had said. Could spirits really be involved? He had not yet received any analysis on that mask the ex-agent had given him. To Yang's great annoyance the sector's government-approved consulting specialist on occult practices turned out to have been Professor Chen Lizhen of the Royal University. In an unforgivable lapse, the records had not been updated to reflect the man's ouster from the University or indeed his much more recent death. Yang was left with a wooden mask and no answers.

At least there were some concerns that Yang could guard against tonight. The reporting agent was still waiting at the back wall of the office. Yang spoke up. "Our political superiors have cautioned that any harm to Fire Nation citizens at this time would be deleterious to the international climate. Station a patrol at the Bridge of Fire."

"The order will be sent."

Yang let out a heavy breath. He could see that the final talley of tonight's incidents was going to reflect poorly on his branch. That would only invite more political interference which would in turn render maintaining safety completely impossible. As much as he hated to do so he would have to act hastily to preemptively salvage the future of his men. He had no choice but to rush things.

"Prepare a rendition team for immediate departure."

"Sir?" The questioning tone was as unavoidable as it was unprofessional. The unspoken questions filled the room. The Agency for Public Safety always got their targets, but to attempt an apprehension on a festival night when the entire city was in disguise was stretching that reputation to the breaking point.

"Do it."

Inspector Yang didn't like this prospect any more than that agent. He had already waited over twenty-four hours after receiving the information to act on it, and had planned to wait longer so that he could use an easy win to secure his branch more goodwill from higher up. But events tonight had forced his hand. His men needed a success, some action to feed the politicians. The student nationalist committee would end the night in Public Safety cells deep underground. Douli Ma'er was watching over them no longer.

...

Out on the tree lined streets of the University quarter, Zhangyi and his two friends had left the other boys to continue their aimless planning in the sing-song house. As they wove their way through the lamp lit festival crowd, Xinfei glimpsed Chonglong looking back at the brothel with an expression that said he would rather be taking part in the remaining nationalists' planned provocation than going out to meet with mysterious superiors. The other boys' talk of escalation seemed more to his taste than Zhangyi's moderation. As Xinfei's clumsy efforts in concealed tracking led to him stumbling past yet another roadside cart selling moon cakes, he once again considered suggesting to Lili that they get her back to her house right away. However, one glance at the look on her face showed that such an effort would be pointless. All he could do was follow her as she continued to down the street after the three student nationalists.

He and Lili were not the best spies. Lili's extravagant costume drew stares from everyone who caught a glimpse of it and with both of them rather taller than the city's average for their respective genders they stuck out still further. Costumes were the general order of the night but it did no good to wear masks when their targets had already seen them up close. However, as Xinfei tried to keep track of Chonglong's head moving through the crowd ahead and internally panicked, Lili had a plan. Once again, shopping came to the rescue.

Xinfei felt like he blinked for a single second and Lili had managed to negotiate the purchase of a large hoodlike brown hat with earflaps that suddenly materialized on his head replacing his costume's gold colored cap. Now he even felt like a monkey. Lili herself was now wrapped in a large shawl of some semi-transparent material in muted earth tones. Somehow it even matched her costume which peaked through from below like sprouts emerging from a tilled field. Her silver coins were still rattling on the shopkeepers' table as Lili grabbed Xinfei's wrist and to tugged him off in their continued pursuit.

Fortunately they didn't have to go far. They had trailed behind the three boys for eight blocks when Xinfei caught a glimpse of them ducking into the open doors of a large restaurant. He grabbed Lili's shoulder to get her attention and then snapped his hand back as if from a hot stove when he remembered she was a high class rich-girl and not one of his friends from the Bed. Fortunately, Lili didn't appear to notice that she should be offended. Indeed she manhandled him much more severely as she rushed forward in her enthusiasm to keep track of their quarry.

The restaurant was a well-apportioned yet packed and noisy place with twenty tables in a central room that reached up two stories to a high ceiling held up by painted columns that lined the edges. The air was thick with the smell of pipe-smoke and the sound of clinking cups mixing with the rattling of dice. Every one of the numerous patrons, mostly men, seemed to be talking and laughing and yelling all at once while any elusive gap in the noise was filled by the sound of a bow against instrument strings and a warbling voice that sang out from behind the backlit screen on the small stage at the head of the room. On a normal night such a setting would be chaotic but on this, the Festival of Veils, the gathered masked crowd looked like the full colorful throngs of the Spirit World had descended down to the earth. It was madness.

The student nationalists were already sitting down at a table halfway across the room but Lili waved paper money at the restaurant staff who quickly cleared a nearby table of some men who had been dicing for too long after only paying for a few drinks. The gamblers were angry but there are few things less sympathetic than an overworked waiter who no longer sees you as a customer. Lili made a point of ordering several random dishes as soon as they sat down to ensure the waitstaff's approval of their spying mission.

From their seats Xinfei and Lili were fairly hidden. They were far enough back to not attract the students' immediate attention, but close enough that they could understand nearly every word that their targets said. The small alterations to their costumes seemed to have done the trick. At one point Xinfei felt Zhangyi's eyes pass over them while scanning the room and he stopped breathing. But Zhangyi didn't see them. Many of the other customers were wearing costumes too so they blended in quiet well.

Lili leaned in close to Xinfei and he felt the by now familiar mental prediction that someone was about to burst in and arrest him for making advances on a Middle Ring rich girl. She murmured:

"Keep your eyes open. With most of these people in disguise it might be difficult identifying who their contact is. You've seen more of the Initiated's special masks than I have. Is there a style that you would recognize if you saw again?"

Xinfei was uncomfortable. He'd barely had a chance to see Ayika in the last few days but one of the few things that exhausted girl had managed to tell him was some very unsettling things about spirits. Xinfei didn't want to believe her. He would have thought that her overfull schedule was allowing that crazy Mama Mua to addle her brain, but he'd also seen the tailor put on that mask on the Fifth Hill. He'd seen what those men in masks did to the father and son earthbenders. He'd been close enough to hear the Masks rip up a metal lamppost. There was power at work there beyond simple disguise. But Lili was still waiting for an answer so he jusg said, "Maybe? I'm also not sure they'd risk using those masks here."

Lili gave him a searching look as if wondering if he too had been infected with talk of spirits. Xinfei hurriedly continued.

"But you're right. Let's keep alert. In a secret meeting like this they could be communicating by dead-drops, or a message covertly passed between two hands, or even hand signs flashed across the room. We should be examining every person who comes in here to see if-"

Lili interrupted. "How about him?"

She was pointing at a tall man in a full face mask who had just walked up to the three student nationalists and clapped Zhangyi on the back.

"What ho, brave conspirators! I see my message found you well."

The students were equally surprised by this entrance and spun around, whipping their heads back and forth for a moment, convinced that the guards would be rushing in after hearing that. The tall man was unconcerned as he claimed a chair at their table. He wore a plain brown robe and seemed bundled up below it against the slight autumn chill. His mask was a simple hardened paper affair, contoured to his face and painted in vertical stripes. Xinfei saw the tip of a narrow black beard bobbing below it as the man spoke to settle the three boys.

"Calm yourselves, on a night such as this much can go unnoticed. But it is good to meet you in person after our communication has been interrupted for so long." The tall man had a distinctive Lower Ring accent, so broad as to almost be comical, like an actor in a play. Far from being circumspect, he seemed to almost dare someone to notice this meeting.

Zhangyi started to say something but Jiang interrupted. "What do you mean a long interruption in communication? We received orders from the Initiated the day of the march on the Fifth Hill. Are you not one of the Initiated?" At this final sentence Chonglong began to bristle and curled his large hands into fists as he glared at the tall man in the mask. He was clearly ready to start trouble if it came to that.

The man replied lazily with a scoff. "The Initiated. They are competent street-captains but they have grown unfocused since the organization lost Li in such an untimely fashion."

Zhangyi said, "Li's been gone for almost a month. Why..." Then recognition flashed across the boys' faces."You're from Li's old patron. The one who was financing our organization for all that time."

Jiang burst in. "Wait, is Li dead? When he stopped showing up three weeks ago we thought he might have gotten nabbed by that rogue Public Safety earthbender who has been hunting us. Other people have disappeared too like, who was it, that Tian guy who made Initiated so quickly. Do you mean they are all...?" he trailed off in horror.

Chonglong was less concerned. "Dead, in a cell forever, doesn't make much difference to us. We can't help them either way. But at least we don't have to worry about them torturing information out of Li about us. Wait, they didn't get that info already did they? Did they?" He might try to look tough but he was no more immune to anxiety than the rest of his friends.

The tall man waved his hand. "Do not worry, Hir...Li died in a mugging. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time in this city. As for any other losses, that might have been expected to come from listening to unwise voices who seem to have been advocating for needlessly dangerous measures. You boys were doing a great job of grasping public opinion with your posters and demonstrations back before these Initiated started taking...liberties. It's not your fault that the organization went off the rails when it got out of my hand. And speaking of your good works..." He produced a yellow envelope from within his robes and slid it in front of Zhangyi. The envelope was fat with something that looked an awful lot like money.

Zhangyi felt at the thick stack and even though he seemed to know what it was, slid open the flap to glance inside before quickly closing it up again. There was a moment of what would have been silence if not for the din of tables yelling loudly for a server and the thrumming notes and warbling song of the hidden musician. Zhangyi turned back to the tall masked man. "The mystery patron continues to be generous. We will certainly continue to _administer_ the message to this _district_ as well as we can."

It took Xinfei a moment but then he realized what Zhangyi was implying with that unusual emphasis. Back at their hiding spot in the brothel Lili had identified herself as Yushui Song, daughter of the district administrator. Zhangyi was taking her sudden appearance on the night he was scheduled to meet with his patron as a sign that Administrator Song was the sponsor. It was a reasonable deduction and only fell short by virtue of being completely wrong.

Their contact didn't appear to notice Zhangyi's awkward double meaning. The masked man habitually stroked his pointed beard once before he continued. "Certainly you will. In fact it saddens me to hear you men refer to yourselves as lesser to those Initiated. When I provided those masks I never dreamed that you founding members would be kept permanently on the outside by those fanatics. If anyone deserves to be called Initiated it's you three! You have clearly demonstrated that you know the best and most reasonable direction for the movement to proceed. After all it was your public displays that got the ministers to see the way opinion is shifting!"

"You mean... We're going to receive the true masks?" Chonglong's last word was pronounced with equal measures fear, reverence, and desire.

"Of course you can. What is a movement without its symbol? They are distinctive, are they not? You are surely doing the good work of this city's guardian spirits. Let everyone who sees you know that. I'm sure I can get you as many masks as you want. In fact, if the current leadership does not accept you, then you can raise additional Initiated that you can trust."

Xinfei frowned. There was something strange about how the mystery man had delivered that last speech. It was too casual. From what Xinfei had seen those masks were the most terrifying weapon ever unleashed on this city. Who was this man to sound so unconcerned? How powerful was someone who didn't fear those tools? He glanced over at Lili but could not read the expression behind her mask.

Chonglong was ecstatic at the prospect of entering the ranks of the Initiated. Xinfei thought that Jiang might have seemed less eager but he stayed silent as muscular friend spoke. "Your sponsor will not regret this gift! We know to respect the power of those masks. I just wish we could've had this meeting earlier. The other non-initiated students were thinking of making some demonstration up here while the Initiated are busy with their mission down in Kuang Harbor, but whatever they come up with is likely to be nothing compared to the other plan. Damn it, even if we got the masks right here there's no way we'd be able to get down to the Harbor before all the action is over."

The tall man's easy-going behavior suddenly vanished to be replaced with hardness. "The Harbor? What is happening there tonight?"

The students were taken aback. Zhangyi hesitantly said, "Oh, we thought you would know. The word went out to tell all Initiated not involved in the Lower Ring search that they were going to make a big display down at the property of that Islander who wants to force a filthy train system on us." Even behind the striped paper mask it was clear that their contact was not happy. Zhangyi looked a little uneasy now. "Don't worry, things won't go wrong like on the Fifth Hill. No one will be down in the industrial area on a holiday night. They can just destroy the place and no one will be hurt. To tell the truth I think the head of the Initiated has some personal grudge against that Miohuito. If-"

Zhangyi was interrupted by the tall man abruptly standing up. The boys stood up too and were about to say something when they suddenly twisted at the sound of a disturbance coming from the entrance. Xinfei turned around with much of the rest of the restaurant and was surprised when he recognized one of the other student nationalist they'd left behind at the brothel. He was panting and in a red-faced blind panic as he charged forward through the front tables of the restaurant searching for someone.

Chonglong ran forward to grab him by the shoulders. "Xiansen what's wrong? Tell us!"

Xiansen managed to control his breathing enough to let out two words. "Public Safety!" The mass of restaurant customers abruptly became very deliberately uninterested in the drama unfolding amidst them. No one wanted to be even tangentially involved in something that was connected to the Shadows Under Earth.

Xiansen continued, "I was just out pacing in the street. I'd felt I'd been drinking too fast so I was just trying too... But then I glanced up and I saw shadows on Flower House roof! Holes appeared in the tiles below them and they dropped down. I heard women scream from the bottom floor of the building too! It was all over in a second and then the guards started coming up the street and I just ran! Zhangyi, we have to do something! Changping was in there, and all the others! We have to-"

The tall man in the paper mask broke through Xiansen's increasingly incoherent blubbering. "Unfortunately, I think this means we have to part ways for tonight. We cannot offer the government another easy target. If this is true there is nothing more we can do for those boys. But I will not abandon you to the predations of the state. Do you remember the old message site at the Fountain of Poetry? I will have a message left in the usual spot detailing how to collect the rest of the operations money and the masks you wanted. Good holiday to you."

Before any of the boys could stop him he was threading his way out of the restaurant. None of the young men looked willing to follow him out onto the street that in their imagination might be swarming with Public Safety. Xinfei thought he might stay and listen to what more the university boys had to say but when he glanced across the table there was a pile of money for the ordered dishes which had not yet arrived and no Lili. It was all he could do to catch up with her before she vanished into the foot-traffic outside the restaurant.

"Come on Xinfei, we have to follow him. That man is the lead we have been looking for!

However, it looked like all their efforts were going to come to naught. After over a kilometer of haphazardly stealthy chasing, their masked target was nearing the open square below the University tram station. Xinfei and Lili weaved and pushed through constant knots of revelers in hurried pursuit. If he got on a tram car without them onboard they would lose him forever. But just as Xinfei was ready to risk running and potentially exposing themselves the tall man gave a slight glance to each side and then ducked in between two canvas awnings of a couple of street-side stalls. That space was flush against a building wall and though there was space to hide there was no other exit.

Xinfei hurried to take up a position on the opposite side of the street and gently moved Lili in front of him so he could steel glances over her head and still look like he was in close conversation with her. Lili scowled up at him for not giving her room to spy as well but she understood the reasoning.

She murmured to him, "Do you see him? What's he doing?"

"No, he's still back there. And if we...Wait! He's coming out now...No, shoot, that's someone else. Maybe he was meeting with...No! That's the same guy!"

Xinfei had thought that the man in the restaurant was curiously bundled up for the moderate climate tonight. He was right, it turned out the guy had been wearing that brown robe over a separate and complete outfit of rich black and gold cloth. The crude paper mask was now discarded and Xinfei saw the man's black goatee and narrow calculating eyes. He didn't look like the Lower Ring local his accent had suggested. In fact he looked foreign and strangely even a bit familiar. Xinfei struggled to place the memory.

Then it came to him. "Wait. Isn't that the guy from the tram? You know, the foreigner who you were-"

Lili spun around with the speed of crackling lighting, her hair slapping across Xinfei's mouth in her haste.

"Tailang?! Fire Nation Trade Representative Tailang?!"

This was the loudest whisper Xinfei had ever heard. Fortunately, the retreating Islander was far enough not to hear, as Lili now launched into a series of hurried exclamations in the barest pretense of hush. "Oh my... that is! That's him but...what? The Fire Nation Trade Mission's sponsoring the Masks?! How does that even make sense? I mean, I'd noticed that Tailang was benefiting from the backlash against the conservatives but this is beyond what I was considering! And does that mean that those masks actually are some sort of artifact of foreign magic? Gah! Who even knows what they get into out there? I don't know. Wait. There's no way Mizumi already knew this, right? Is there? No, of course not."

Xinfei was just as confused by the Fire Nation involvement, if less surprised that an official of any government was complicity in illicit deceptions. He'd voiced his various suspicions before but now face to face with them he had to admit he hadn't really believed they were true. However, there was something else this night that he suddenly found himself focusing on instead. A few words said back at the restaurant. It was one of those little realizations which incubates in the back of the mind and slowly grows, independent of any conscious consideration. He should have noticed it back in the conversation with Tailang and Xinfei'd been too obsessed with the mystery of identifying the man in the mask to pay that loose fact any attention. Now Xinfei opened his mouth in an absent way that hid a growing undercurrent of terror.

"Lili, Zhangyi said the Masks were busy tonight down in Kuang Harbor," Xinfei muttered distantly. "Maolin's out with his neighborhood watch to tonight. What kind demonstration are the Initiated making down there? They said it was a big show; like a lot of them. And wouldn't...wouldn't he try to stop them?"

He watched confusion melt into horror on Lili's face as fear settled into his stomach like a lump. He'd seen what those Masks could do when they were interested in making a display. Their strength, their power. Of course his brother would confront the Masks if anyone was in danger. And tonight there certainly would be danger. And if Maolin tried to match strength with the Masks... Xinfei was already running before he recognized what he was doing. Dimly he sensed that Lili was dashing along behind him but he couldn't focus on that. He had to warn his brother to stay away from whatever was about to happen. Tonight would-be heroes were already dropping like flies.

...


	48. Party

...

Ayika and Mizumi road along in the elevated tram above the Middle Ring rooftops. Bright, riotous parties and dark neighborhood streets flashed below them. On her bench seat, Ayika silently reminded herself over and over that her anxiety at seeing so many spirits roaming tonight really wasn't sufficient reason to keep inching over on the bench until she was rather significantly infringing on Mizumi's personal space. However, as they neared the dark rearing mass of the Noble's Wall Mizumi seemed to be executing her own gradual migration towards Ayika. She looked nervous and Ayika could guess why. Mizumi's passport might have gotten them into the Noble's car and through the Middle Ring but when they reached the gate to the land of the golden blooded nobles they would be relying entirely on the strength of a party invitation to gain them entrance. An invitation that was strictly speaking addressed to the men of the Miohuito family. There was a reason Mua had summoned spiritual aid to get her through the Inner Ring checkpoints.

And even if the guards recognized the invitation, who knew if the old traditions of free traffic through the gates on the festival night applied to foreigners? There had to be harsh penalties still on the books for a Fire Nation woman trying to sneak past that antepenultimate barrier between the King of Kings and the rest of the world. At least Ayika doubted that her own race was explicitly mentioned in those laws but then again that was only because few people in the kingdoms could be bothered to remember the People's existence.

The inner wall was getting big now. In the dark of the night air the long line seemed to vanish twenty meters above the ground only to reappear high above them under the glow of distant lamps that marked out the surmounting guard stations out to each horizon. Their earthbender powered tram continued to rumble towards it, like a skiff over a sea of clay tile waves. The festival's paper lanterns glowed like jellyfish.

Mizumi began to nervously chuckle. "I am now thinking of the fact that Mama Mua is supposedly recruiting spiritual help and enchantment to get herself through this barrier and we are simply knocking on the door, so to speak. Do you think there will be as much trouble as that?"

Ayika could only shrug. "This is as close to the Inner Ring gate as I've ever gone. We'll be on this adventure together."

Their knees were touching side by side, and Ayika could feel Mizumi's leg tense with her as the tram began to slow as they neared the wall. The earthbender adepts in the rear of the cars had ceased their efforts to propel the craft. The tram slid into the tunnel entrance that pierced the vertical stone several stories up the artificial cliff with a sense of finality. Then they stopped completely inside the stone walled chamber several meters inside the wall. Unlike the tunnels through the other walls there was no hint of light piercing through from the other side. Only the lantern lit festival night behind them, stone on each side, and blackness before them.

Their carriage door slid open and a city guard in a badge covered vest stepped aboard, looking at the girls and the few other passengers. Ayika thought to herself that even the greenies had fancier uniforms up here. Mizumi gave a small polite smile as she offered up her passport paired with the invitation to Erliao's party. Ayika found that she was holding her breath. But they needn't have worried. The guard barely glanced over the passport and apparently recognized the format of the invitation in an instant. He gave the documents back, bored again as Ayika and Mizumi apparently didn't fit his profile of potential troublemakers. The expensive silver and gold decorations on their respective costumes probably helped.

As soon as he stepped back out of the tram cabin Mizumi let out a relieved exhalation.

"Ha, for a moment I thought we were...ah!"

The sudden lurch from under the tram shook a small yelp out of Mizumi. Ayika had been expecting something like this but even so it startled her enough that she did not mind giving Mizumi a moment to recover from the embarrassment.

Then she said, "Yeah, that was surprising."

They were moving upwards now, on a slanted ramp through the stony black. The tram echoed with the sound of rock scraping against rock over the grunts of earthbenders powering the mechanism that carried them up through the wall.

After what could have been a minute or eight lifetimes, they smoothly slid forth from the tunnel up into a new light. They emerged in the middle of a cavernous marble floored station larger than the most massive ballroom. In fact it was larger than most market districts. Pillars soared up three stories above their heads to hold the roof over that vast empty space. The tram had only just come to a complete halt when the door slowly slid open and this time a man in a neat uniform of dark green and yellow stepped inside. In concession to the holiday the man had a single blue paper streamer hanging down from each shoulder.

"Welcome to the Station of Sparkling Waters. Transportation is available to the Guan, Lai, Erliao, and Xie residences."

Ayika and Mizumi got up, exchanging hesitant glances with each other, and followed the man's offered gesture as he exited backwards through the door. At first Ayika had thought that the four households mentioned might have been the destinations of the other passengers. The guards must have somehow communicated that up from the passport check? She'd just been thinking to herself that this was a very fancy maneuver when she noticed that in addition to herself and Mizumi only one man had gotten off at this station. Ayika was still puzzling after this when the rest of the tram rolled off down its new track and she had yet to even finish crossing the vast marble station floor. Through a set of massive doors that were open to the still cooperating autumn climate she saw her first real glimpse of the Inner Ring. It was all she could do not to hold her hands before her mouth in shock.

Those four names were the only four households serviced by this station. Outside the doors of the tram station, gentle grass-covered hills undulated beside dark groves of manicured trees. Shimmering pools reflected faint starlight. Here and there rose the towering roofs of estates whose mansions would constitute a Middle Ring city block even before consideration was given to the sprawling outbuildings reached out to the borders of each property's ornamental walls. Ayika's hometown was in the encircled lands and so it wasn't like she was some Lower Ring citizen who'd never seen a horizon before, but she had never before seen land that was not put to some use. There were no grain fields here. The trees gave no fruit. The hills themselves had been designed and built centuries ago for the sole purpose of pleasing the eye and the roads wound around them, purposefully prolonging the journey.

For a moment she was frozen where she stood. Somewhere faintly in the back of her mind she noticed that in the nighttime distance the mansion lights seemed to get closer together as they drew nearer to the center of the city and the vast walled palace complex that housed the residence of the King of Kings. There must be some trade off in desirability between these plots amid this endless parkland of the ring's edge and proximity to the center of all political power in the world. It seemed unreal that this was all in her city. In a brief moment Ayika suddenly grasped some of Xinfei's simmering resentment towards the government and the rest of high society. These people were higher above her than she'd even dreamed.

But Mizumi smoothly presented the invitation to an attendant just outside the station and their guide was gently guiding them towards a waiting carriage. As they approached the vehicle, another employee dashed forward to place a small step before the door to the carriage. Ayika looked down at the man kneeling down in the dust and as she did so she felt the silver disk of her costume gently swing out and tap against her forehead again. Her hand drifted up to her mask in remembrance that it was still there. None of these people saw Ayika the laundry girl. They saw a woman dressed in shimmering blue and purple and silver. They saw the Moon walking beside Mizumi, the golden Sun. She climbed up the step into the carriage.

As soon as they settled into their seats the driver urged the haltered beasts up to a slow and gentle pace. They'd just barely started to move when Mizumi turned to look at Ayika.

"Erm, you have never been to the Inner Ring before, is that right?"

Ayika could only shake her empty-feeling head. "No. I've never even seen over this wall before."

Mizumi must have heard something of Ayika's overwhelmed emotions because she began to laugh with relief. "I give thanks for that! I was beginning to think that I was going to be alone in gaping like a mountain peasant on her first trip to the city! I...I may understand why so many of those ministers look down on us merchant families from the Fire Nation. This is beyond anything I thought this city had in... Oh for-!" Here Mizumi cut herself off from some exclamation that was sure to have been an exasperated curse as she looked out the little carriage window. "Is that really his house?"

Their path made a gentle curve towards a fitted stone bridge over an elegantly designed stream and as it did so the passengers were afforded a glimpse at their destination. It was big. Despite the thousand lanterns which were lit on every wall, the main building was of such a scale that much of its upper stories vanished into the gloom of night. Ayika could barely make out the yellow roof tiles, that exclusive privilege of nobility.

Mizumi was now muttering to herself. She kicked softly at the carriage wall in front of her seat. "At least they are still using Nation designed carriages, no matter how much they dress them up like some ancient Earth Kingdom contraption. I guess the noble behinds still want our shock absorbers."

Ayika burst out with sudden laughter. The pettiness of Mizumi's national pride had abruptly turned all that had been intimidating into just more humorous excess. Ayika reached over and grasped hold of Mizumi's hand who returned with a self-deprecating smile flashed from under her golden mask.

Ayika felt theatrical. "Come on now, my lady of the sun, we came here on a mission; to find out more about Minister Erliao and to make sure Nia Mua does not do anything more stupid than necessary."

Mizumi squeezed her hand back. She smirked. "That, and to eat and drink enough that even rich Mister Erliao will feel the cost."

Ayika leaned back in mock surprise. "Mizumi Miohuito, I believe we may make you a Kingdoms woman yet!"

...

The gates to the Erliao estate were tall and strong but on this night both the left and the right portals were flung open for all to enter and leave as they pleased. When they rolled through, Ayika saw the thick timbers were painted gold with large-character calligraphy verse, appropriate for the Sub-minister of Culture and Worthy Expression. As they prepared to exit the carriage, Mizumi whispered that if the staff wanted to announce their introduction upon their entrance she was to let Mizumi handle it entirely. Ayika was happy to agree and as she worried over that possibility she didn't even notice the aristocratic nod that her disguised self unconsciously gave the servant who opened the carriage door for her. Off to the side she caught a glimpse of dozens of empty carriages waiting in the yard as she and Mizumi ascended the wide steps up the front of the mansion.

Once they stepped through the grand entrance Ayika was completely lost. She was used to parties being much louder and much, much more crowded. Luckily, Mizumi muttered that she had some familiarity with this kind of Earth Kingdom party if not with such scale. From the cavernous front hall the Erliao residence seemed to sprawl out beyond comprehension through an endless series of small but high ceilinged inter-connected rooms. Most of the walls between these rooms had been drawn back so that their delineation was now more mental than actual. The foci of this party format, if there was one, seemed to be the many small circles of chairs or couches that were apportioned one or two per room as conversational stations of some sort. The attending population was guided by some unknown circulation mechanism that led individuals to gracefully rise and switch stations every few minutes. The rooms to the left were occupied by men and those on the right by women, a transition eased by mixed gender meeting spaces between them that all must traverse in order to reach their next station in the party. The winding space whispered with the quiet drone of low conversation that vanished out down this central branch of the mansion.

Every guest here was in costume yet despite this it was still easy to pick out the Inner Ring nobles from the often equally rich invitees of lesser pedigree. In fact this holiday made it far easier. Apparently, in these rarified circles of nobility there were really only three or four fashionable costumes for each gender and each of the golden blooded had chosen one of those options. They were all constructed of the finest hand-embroidered cloth and their details varied but seen from across a room they merged into a single costly yet formless blob of interchangeable finery.

Mizumi and Ayika did not experience that problem. From the moment they entered the party they both had eyes on them. The costumes Mizumi had arranged for them clearly operated on foreign sensibilities of fashion which caught everyone's attention. In contrast to the solid and restrained dresses of the Inner Ring women Mizumi's dark red skirt-strips over loose silk trousers were in constant tantalizing motion. Her golden bangles also flicked from side to side with each step and gave even crossing a room the rhythm of a dance. Her tri-pointed golden headdress stood above the crowd like a beacon, a rising sun on the horizon. But even beside her, Ayika was not overshadowed. Ayika felt the stares burning into her. She heard her costume's slitted skirt swish back and forth as she moved. The combination of the silver mask and whatever little touches Mizumi had done to her lips with the makeup brush must have done their job for even as these people noted her skin color there were still several eyebrows raised in appreciation.

Ayika followed Mizumi closely and resisted the urge to cling onto her arm. The merchant's daughter seemed almost at home. She confidently picked up the cues from the attending servants and sashayed over to a nearby seating circle with several empty chairs. Ayika sat down after her and looked at their two newly acquired temporary companions. They appeared to be a rather over-embroidered water spirit and an old woman in Noble Costume Number Two, something unidentifiable in a blueish green. The older woman seemed to have permanently seated herself at the nearest station to ensure she was the first to comment on every guest and that she did not have to walk the length of the mansion to ensure she got them all.

Mizumi gracefully nodded her head to the two women and said, "Warmest hello on this holiday night. I hope it finds you well." At a loss for something else to do Ayika mimicked her nod.

"My, my," the old woman said. "Just look at you two. How exotic! I feel like I'm at an occidental exposition." Apparently, she did not feel the need to match introductions.

The woman in the water spirit dress took up the lead in niceties by introducing herself. "Lipu Qi. What lovely costumes you both have."

"Why thank you," Ayika broke in with a smile. The Impenetrable City Legacy School for Young Ladies had an exhausting number of classes on proper etiquette. Ayika had learned enough by observation to know how this bit worked. "May I have the privilege of offering us all a drink?" She confidently waved her hand and a servant with a tray of small cups appeared at her side. Until lately she'd filled that roll, performing similar tea serving duties when Headmaster Gang had entertained a parent he wished to impress with the school's cosmopolitan demographics. She nodded deeply to the old woman as she indicated to the delicate porcelain cups. "May you honor me by accepting?"

Before the old noble woman could respond Lipu hastily stood up, "I'm afraid I must decline. There are several greetings I must yet make. I hope you can forgive me."

Mizumi waved her hand permissively. "Not at all. It was wonderful to meet you Lipu Qi. I hope we can speak again later tonight." As Lipu left Mizumi turned back to the noble. "I am afraid we may have driven away your friend!"

The old woman gave a small laugh, "Ha! You allowed her to escape is more like it. The girl couldn't leave me alone until someone else arrived and of course a thing like her did not come to a party to talk to the likes of me. But I suppose I can touch these old lips to porcelain for a foreigner who's taken the time to learn good manners." The servant poured out a tiny measure of lightly colored liquid into a cup and offered it over. The woman took it and as the servant turned to do the same for Mizumi, the noble raised an enigmatic eyebrow. She said, "And a Tribal as well. Gracious, Sub-Minister Chao is going out of his way to make this an interesting affair, isn't he? How exactly are you familiar with the Erliao family?"

Mizumi answered quickly, "My father's company operates an import licenses though the Kuang River Harbor. Minister Erliao and he are politically aquatinted."

The woman chuckled at the finer details this description glossed over. "Aquatinted. Oh, that's putting it mildly, I imagine. I do try to keep out of politics but one does still hear things. Knowing Chao I assume that's not a great deal of love with a man such as your father." Having said this the woman turned her eyes on Ayika, inviting her to provide some equivalent explanation for herself.

As a casual stalling technique Ayika took a sip of the cup she had received and then spent a great deal of mental energy maintaining her composure. That was not tea. From the warmth now lightly burning in her stomach she was just thankful that she hadn't taken a large swig of what turned out to be rather strong liquor. But she maintained herself and before Mizumi could interject Ayika decided to take charge of her own introduction.

She leaned forward ever so slightly as she adopted a slyly conspiratorial tone with her noble interrogator. "I realize I haven't mentioned my own name yet but then again, tonight's the Festival of Autumn Veils. Would you please forgive me if I take advantage of the occasion to experiment with a little mystery? After all, a night like this only occurs once a year. Surely you can understand the desire to walk unknown for one evening?" She finished with a knowing smile, drawing attention to the old woman's own failure to introduce herself.

Ayika felt Mizumi tense up beside her. However, the noble woman's face cracked with a hint of a smile. "Oh, I certainly can." She shook her head. "To be young again. Even disregarding those ridiculous rumors, as of course one must, I think I understand why Chao Erliao might have invited you. Even if that Middle Ring peddler seems intent on ruining things with his insinuations."

Ayika raised an eyebrow at that cryptic statement but the noble woman did not seem inclined to explain herself. Instead she looked off behind the girls and continued, "Ah, it looks like Shuhua Zou has arrived. That poor woman, two daughters in a row and then twins! And not a son among them, dear me. Well, I'll let you two girls get on to more age-appropriate interests than talking with me. It is not for me to stop the motion of the Moon and the Sun!" She tittered with polite laugher at her turn of phrase with their costumes. Ayika suspected it was a quote from something cultured and clever.

Mizumi nodded warmly as she rose to head off to the next table-station and Ayika had a momentary panic as she rushed to down the rest of her tiny cup before she committed a grave offense by abandoning it undrunk. That faintly burning warmth slid down with the smell of flowers and money. These rich parties were a little more challenging than she'd expected. She gave some thank you to the noble woman before rushing along to stick with Mizumi.

The path of the party now carried them to the first of the mixed gender rooms placed between the two respective flows of traffic. Across it, Ayika saw Lipu Qi in her river costume discontentedly being led off to the next sitting room while shooting a glare back across at the male attention gathered by Mizumi's entrance. Clearly among a certain set of female guests these mixing rooms were the chief objective of attendance. There was still no sight of Minister Erliao or of Nia Mua. However, Ayika's search was quickly cut off as she was sucked into a swirl of beautiful ladies and well-dressed men. The flow of conversation here was elaborate and obtuse but to her own surprise, Ayika found herself navigating it well. She just let her anxieties sink below the personality of her costume. That masked, powerful woman in silver and blue was not anxious at all and even these nobles seemed to respond to that. From time to time she noticed Mizumi looking at her with a curious smile at the corner of her lips. Ayika only hoped she wasn't being an embarrassment without realizing it.

Then they escaped the swirling mixing room in the continued search of the party but though the next ladies sitting room was quieter it was not by much. Of the women already making up this chattering group, two were easily identifiable as Inner Ring residents by their unoriginal costumes. The third had put more thought into her display but was now discovering to her irritation that she was perhaps not as unique as she had expected to be. This stare Ayika found focused on her was not as pleasant as the others.

This rich young lady was dressed in a parody of Water Tribe ceremonial wear so overdone with stereotype that even Mrs Anyakya would have raised an eyebrow. Unfortunately, the poor imitation also did not exactly match the lady's kingdoms native coloration. Behind her white-fur edged mask and low cut blue dress she frowned at Ayika for the affront of showing up in her natural skin that automatically undercut the display. Ayika's normal reaction to such an appropriation would have been to wipe her face blank and continue with her job. However, tonight her job was to mingle like a proper high class lady. And besides, at least this woman was showing some appreciation of the People, however misguided. There was no need to expose her ignorance when she was clearly trying to overcome the transition from the Middle Ring to the Inner Ring herself. Ayika flashed the girl back a warm and welcoming smile.

This earned a quickly suppressed chuckle from one of the noble ladies. Yet despite her misgivings, girl in the Tribes costume jumped into offering a round of drinks for their newly enlarged circle. Ayika accepted hers graciously, if with some hidden hesitance this time. These nobles were certainly lush but if she and Mizumi managed to stay at this circle for a long enough time to consume the offering by a hundred little sips she should do fine. In fact, she was feeling confident enough to initiate this session of party banter.

Ayika smiled as she offered a compliment to the false Water Tribe girl. "I love your costume! The workmanship really is excellent. I assure you, you'd blend right in with the migrant districts!" She chuckled and continued jokingly. "I suppose that on this night we're countrywomen. Perhaps we will ally together against these..." Ayika glanced to the side and realized that she could not deduce what the two noble girls were dressed as. The fashionable Inner Ring costumes were abstract enough to verge on the nonrepresentational. One might have been a tiger-lion, or a teapot. Ayika gestured her hand vaguely into the distance. "...the wild spirits in the night. Tell me, have you had a chance to visit this estate on a previous occasion?"

The woman in the blue and white dress eyed Ayika very suspiciously like a general watching an enemy cavalry force marshaling on the hill above. The noble woman on her left was trying to disguise a delighted gasp and Mizumi was for some reason failing to keep a smile off her face. Ayika didn't know why. Her little speech had been perfectly polite. She took another sip from her tiny cup.

The noble who was not dressed as a tiger turned to the tribes-dressed woman. "Behave, Heying. She's not the one who decided you should come dressed as garishly as an actor. Besides, it's your fellow ring dweller Mister Gaoli who's your costume's principle obstacle tonight. If what Xiao'en told me about what he's saying is correct, as you move through the deeper halls you will encounter the ground unfortunately disposed against your outfit. It seems there is a rumor afoot!" This lady hit a practiced tone to sound at once horrified and delighted at this prospect.

"Gaoli? Really?" Mizumi injected herself into the conversation. "I know of an Aizhang Gaoli from the Middle Ring. He has business dealings with my family. What is it that he is saying?"

The noble lady-tiger muttered to herself just loudly enough to be heard by all. "Of course he has _dealings_." Someone did not think highly of those who obtained their money through business instead of inheritance. Or of Fire Nation people, it was hard to tell.

Her companion ignored that comment. "Oh, it's nothing credible in the specifics, but it apparently unburied an old accusation that the good Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression was once...inappropriately involved with foreign cultures." From her expressions she was trying to fit a lot of meaning into those few words.

Ayika thought she was beginning to understand. Apparently, Lili's father was at the party and for his part of this reformer/conservative feud he was making something of Erliao's old friendship with Professor Lizhen, the infamous multiculturalist. Mua had said that Erliao had once been a student of Lizhen's, going with him down to the Harbor and other foreign quarters around the city. Those studies of Lizhen's were how Mua met both men all those years ago. Ayika supposed that a decade old fascination with the foreign customs Erliao now railed against would be somewhat embarrassing to him. Still, as a scandal, studying foreign temples in collage seemed lacking a punch. If that was the talk of the party then there was no way Mua was here yet. Ayika felt a tense part of her core relax.

Heying Tonight-of-the-Water-Tribe, hadn't been paying much attention to this rumor talk and was instead looking off though the open passageway to the next mixing room. "Oh, is that Zhe Wei all by himself in there? I had no idea that Lord Wei's family would be attending. Ladies, if you don't mind terribly, might we traverse over as a group and entertain the poor man?" Her voice was light and casual but there was a clear hint of focused energy. This woman was obviously on a mission tonight and it was fairly clear what the objective was.

However, none of the other women here had any real objection to moving deeper through the party so all five of them rose. Ayika noted with a flash of panic that they had all left their drink cups back on the small table while she was forced to carry her still half-full cup with her, urgently sipping on it when she could. Hopefully she'd be able to finish it and pass it off to a servant soon enough. She wasn't about to be outmatched by a bunch of prissy rich ladies.

There was indeed a servant standing at attention in this next parlor though it was empty of people to serve save for two men in standing discussion. Ayika assumed Heying had meant Zhe Wei was 'alone' only in reference to the absence of the feminine energy she hoped to provide for the younger of the two. However, Zhe Wei did not seem interested in female companionship at the moment. The young man in a gold coin patterned costume was in the middle of an intense conversation with a middle aged man who looked regretful that he had ever gotten involved. However, by the time the women started filtering in, another man in his twenties or early thirties came up from another part of the party and seemed to have redoubled Mister Wei's energy.

The newcomer was nodding in agreement with Wei's pervious statement. "There is a lack of faith in the godly spirits of our Kingdom. Tradition's no longer respected. The only thing captures the mind of the public these days is some curséd idea of modernity, which is to rightly say blind self-loathing adoration of the Fire Nation."

This new support caused Zhe Wei to redouble his intensity towards the older man. "It's not just a lack of respect for tradition, there is a lack of faith in the government and in the temples. The wartime leadership of our generals and the Dai Li collapsed and since then nothing has taken their place for inspiring the public's loyalty. The core strength of our culture has been wounded and these foreigners are the infection that has taken hold." Nearby, Heying was attempting to subtly pose herself in Wei's eye line, to no avail.

The middle aged man made a vacillating grumble in between these two young ardents. "Come now. Isn't that a bit alarmist? There's plenty of good work coming out of Ba Sing Se these days. Did you hear about the... what was his name? Professor Song? The fellow who's doing those breakthroughs with galvanics? Brilliant work I'm told. And you can not deny that there's a minor literary flowering occurring."

But Zhe would have none of this. He wrinkled his lip in disgust. "Research submitted to be published in a Fire Nation journal of Natural Philosophy, and populist writing mimicking the style of those Islander serials. Indulgent drivel that they insist on calling _realism_. It's street theater in written form. No, any flowering you see is that of a parasitic vine that is wrapping around us tighter and tighter. Minister Erliao is right. The so called reformers wish nothing less than to destroy our cultural soul."

"Hold now Zhe, I think you may have gotten a little ahead of yourself. And there's a young lady here who might have some insight." The middle aged man gestured off to Mizumi with a smile that held barely concealed relief for her presence. "Forgive us Miss, politics do have a way of drawing out heated conversation. I'm positive no offense was intended."

Mizumi politely waved away his concern as she walked up and the golden fringe of her maroon sleeves glinted exotically.

"No forgiveness is necessary. You should hear what we say about you all when we are back home. Or what we say about ourselves for that matter." She ended with a laugh that encouraged some of the other men to join in. She was clearly well experienced in such elevated conversation. She was even conducting them in a language not hers by birth.

However, by now Mizumi was sucked into a conversational circle that was already quite overfull with Heying trying to insert herself beside her hoped-for male companion. The noble woman dressed as a tiger saw that Ayik had been separated from her companion and drifted over to recite a few pleasant sounding platitudes as a simulation of conversation. However, it was very clear that a woman of her breeding saw speaking to one of the People of the Tribes as far beneath her even if the etiquette ingrained on her bones would not let her show it. To avoid this two-fold irritation Ayika made some excuse and left that woman with her social equals as Ayika drifted over to the room's open balcony.

Standing there beside the railing, Ayika could see across the mansion's dark central garden and into other bright rooms of the mansion where the party continued its sprawling path. Presumably there would be some final point of coalescence where the host would be able to see all his guests but she'd yet to find it. She'd also failed to see Erliao or Mua anywhere. It seemed this whole plan was needless after all and now she and Mizumi would just have to enjoy a fancy party. Ayika found a small smirk on her lips even as a shiver ran up her back. All these people were so convinced of the innate superiority of their blood but here was Ayika, navigating through their ranks behind a silver mask.

"You wear that face well."

Ayika nearly jumped out of her own skin when she realized that she was not alone on that balcony. There was a man standing off to the side of the door, his black costume and full face mask causing him to blend into the shadows as long as he remained still. Evidently, Ayika wasn't the only one who needed a break from the party guests now and then. Now that he turned, she saw that the man's mask was as silver as hers though it instead covered everything under his hood in a curious arrangement of metallic strips. Ayika wondered who he was supposed to be.

To gain herself a moment to calm her heart rate from that embarrassing fright Ayika casually sipped from the cup she still carried. She was beginning to be thankful for the fortifying warmth of the alcohol. "Thank you. It was a gift from my friend. I will pay the compliment forward."

The man in black chuckled, causing his metal textured mast to shift in an odd way that made faint sounds of metal on metal. "That one too. But I'm afraid your friend is drawing close to danger."

Ayika glanced back to Mizumi. There was still no sign of Mua, and now Zhe Wei did not seem to be having as enjoyable a time was he was before the Fire Nation woman started to talk. Ayika smiled.

"She can hold her own in politics. If anything I'd fear for the men she's talking to."

"Yes, it doesn't take much to see the fierceness in that fire. But there are dangerous ones here. Not all show themselves so easily. And those newcomers owe you no favors."

Ayika frowned at the man in black. He was still standing back in the shadow away from the wavering light of the nearest oil lamp. There must be even more metal strips dangling from his costume somewhere as she could hear faint sounds of steel on steel as he moved. This guy also spoke like he'd drunk more far more of these little cups than Ayika had. She could hear the accent of someone struggling to make a mouth form the words properly. He was getting overly familiar which she decided to put a stop to.

"I take it you're not among Minister Erliao's conservatives. But if you're planning on making a scene please don't involve me or my friend. I'm very squeamish about conflict." Ayika knew how to lie when it suited her.

The man in black laughed. Ayika audibly sniffed in disapproval as she punctuated her posture with another sip from her cup. The man's cloaked costume continued to click and scrape with the faint sounds of metal on metal.

His voice murmured as a faint night breeze picked up. "Lies are welcome guests here. But they do little good against those drawn by the fire. Remember who you truly are and you'll find your way through. Your bloodline is strong, Kuangdaughter."

Her frown deepened even more. Even the most reformist Kingdomers never wanted her to forget her foreign blood. She'd never even seen outside the city walls but that never mattered. Ayika turned to step off the balcony. "I think I'll leave you to your own company. You appear to prefer it." The man made no sound to correct her.

Mizumi came across the room and took Ayika by the arm. She leaned in to whisper as she led them both away, "It took far too long but I now know how to locate Erliao in this maze of a party. And if we get cornered again there is no need for you to stand off on an empty balcony. I know you can hold your own with the best of these people."

"No, there was actually another guest out there who I was talking too. He just really blends in with his all black costume." Ayika turned back. She had already lost sight of the man. Contrasted with the brightly lit interior of the mansion the balcony seemed only inhabited by shadows. Then she abruptly realized that he'd referred to her home without Ayika ever mentioning it. How had he known her? Who was he? Wait, or had she said something? It was difficult to remember. There were a limited number of city districts where the Water Tribe settled, perhaps it had just been a guess. Once again the back of her neck prickled and the party had once again transformed into a fearsome unknown jungle.

But Mizumi was intent on chasing after this new trail to Erliao and while Ayika concurred she still frowned a little before she hurriedly drank the rest of her little cup, silently cursing these etiquette rituals. Things were happening here and she wasn't at her best. As they got up to continue the circulation path she leaned over to Mizumi. "At the next sitting room, could you find some trick in the etiquette to avoid the round of drink pouring? If our goal here's to be sharp and on our toes, a full night of that won't help."

Mizumi waved off this concern. "It is not as bad as that. One small sip in each room will not..." She stopped and looked over at Ayika. "Wait, have you been drinking the entire cup?"

Ayika began to feel a sinking sensation that descended to meet the pleasant limb-suffusing warmth rising up from her stomach."...Wasn't everyone?"

Mizumi cut off her laughter before it began. "It is fine. You know now and two cups is not very much if you fake sipping for next hour. That is acceptable too."

Ayika was comforted. Her worries of just a second ago now seemed ridiculous. "Yeah, right. It's fine. Ha! You had me worried there for a second. I'm fine."

However, Mizumi was still looking at her. "Ayika, are your cheeks...? You have consumed alcohol before in the past, correct?"

Now Ayika did laugh. People must have been eavesdropping because Mizumi flinched as quite a few party goers looked over at them. "Of course I have. Just don't listen to Xinfei's teasing. He's always trying to tell people that I'm a lightweight when I'm not. He just likes making up stories." Ayika's anxiety departed as quickly as it had come and left only the warmth and confidence.

Mizumi's smile was now a bit more rigid for some reason. "Of course he does. How about when we see the next servant we get you a nice big cup of tea."

"Ooh, yes. And don't worry, I'll just fake taking little sips. Or no, wait, I mean the other thing. Let's go find Erliao!" Ayika was feeling much better about their prospects for success, even if Mizumi had curiously developed cold feet. It didn't even seem like Mama Mua was here at the party. All the guests they had spoken too had clearly reacted to Ayika like she was the only woman of the Tribes here. Then they needn't have worried at all. Mua got stuck or gave up somewhere. Erliao was safe from misguided reprisal for tonight.

Ayika was still confident when a sudden rush of chatter behind them signaled the entrance of a new guest. Ayika slowly turned to see a woman walk through the front hall. She wore a dress as colorful as poisonous flowers and a skull shaped mask of blue beads. What's more, to Ayika's eyes there was an orange spirit composed entirely of feathered wings drifting above the woman's head. Even as Ayika noticed it, the spirit was already dissolving out of the world, its bargain now complete. It was impossible to miss who was under that disguise. Nia Mua had come for her prey.

...


	49. Steel

...

Xiaobao and his fellow newly minted neighborhood watchman crept through the dark towards the entrance to Miohuito's train-yard. Beside him, Li was swaying back and forth slightly with nervous energy as they paused for a moment outside the compound gate. It had been several minutes now since they'd seen the shadowy figures force their way inside. Through a tiny gap in the newly open gate Xiaobao saw several people moving inside the yard. The beam of the vandals' hooded lantern flicked around as it washed over vague shapes of steel and iron in front of long factory buildings.

Xiaobao turned to Li. "It's ok. Chouyu is going to get that help we sent him for soon enough. And what are these guys going to do in the meantime, smash some windows? Not really a big deal. I don't think there's more than five of them or so. Worst comes, they start a fire and then hightail it. We can start yelling for a bucket line in an instant and stop it before it spreads."

Li nodded nervously and stayed by Xiaobao's side. Now all Xiaobao needed to do was reassure himself.

He groaned as he caught sight of a new flickering orange light spilling out through the cracks in the gate. They were lighting fires. Those damn Lower Ring citizens really didn't care if the whole of Kuang Harbor burnt down. Then he heard the sound of running footsteps smacking faintly on the street behind him. Xiaobao turned to see Chouyu returning with five longshoremen from another of the ad-hoc watch posts. Chouyu was panting as he came up to Xioabao and Li but he too recognized that orange light from inside the train-yard soon enough.

He whispered loudly enough to make Xiaobao wince. "Oh damn it. Not more fires!"

Xiabao turned back. No one had exited the train-yard yet. Those fools must be sticking around to maximize the damage of their arson. Well, that meant he had no choice. Xiaobao straightened up and squared his shoulders. The other men saw him retrieve the empty bottle from where it was tucked in his belt and they at once both sighed in resignation and bristled in building machismo. They were all dock workers and were used to moving crates heavy enough to crush an unwary man in a second. Any warren-dwelling citizen from the rings would look twice at eight such men coming at them out of the dark. None of them had high hopes for the city guards being any help on a festival night and if they did the government might well consider flattening six blocks of houses in this neighborhood to be an acceptable loss to contain a fire. No, this was a job for local men.

Xiaobao smiled faintly that he didn't have to say a single word to psych these men into preparing for action. Everyone in the Harbor had heard of those Lower Ring fires that seemed to be springing up every day this last week. Whether all that was weather or crime or something else, no one wanted that kind of thing here even if they didn't believe the other rumors of the fire being magical. Well, Xiaobao thought that he didn't believe, but Ayika had been saying some strange things lately. In a dark night like this he remembered years long past, when he was a kid and listened to his friend's old grandmother cackling in her foreign language as she prepared Water Tribe rituals and charms, marching across the Bed as she claimed to do battle with some spirit or another. And now Ayika herself was starting to talk in the same manner; of spirit crimes and growing power.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. There were men here counting on him and there was a job to do. Trying to project confidence he didn't feel, Xiaobao strode forward and put one large calloused hand on the train-yard gate. It was unlocked now. Well, there was no going back now. He pushed it open with enough force that it banged against the compound wall and started swinging back closed again.

As Xiaobao stepped through the gateway he puffed out his chest and yelled into the night. "All right, you bastards! We don't know who you are and we don't really care, but now you're starting fires so you lot've got about one gull's flap to get out of here before we let you know just what kind of lads live down here! If I were you I would take advantage of this generous offer!"

The interior of Mister Miohuito's train compound was primarily composed of two large warehouses or factories and a number of small outbuildings scattered around an open yard filled with piles of long metal bars and shadowed hulks of unidentifiable machinery. One of those smaller overseer's huts, possibly housing some records, was already ablaze and by its light the dockworkers saw several men freeze in the open doorway to the main warehouse. These intruders were better dressed than the normal Lower Ring sort typically involved in random property destruction. That was more worrisome, these might be genuine politicals. Xiaobao made sure that the other longshoremen moved with him to not stand directly in front of the gate out. No matter how this played out they needed to provide the arsonists with a clear path of escape. There was nothing more dangerous than accidentally leaving a man no exit but through you.

One of the fire-starters swore loudly as he turned to call back into the cavernous building behind him.

"We've got company! Not government but there's a lot them!"

His companion stepped back out of the warehouse and said, "I don't like the looks of this. These louts look like business."

This just got a growl. "And yet you were the one who was against putting them on from the beginning."

"Have you tried yours recently? Something's gone wrong. It was... I felt dizzy and afterwards there were parts where I couldn't remember exactly what happened. I ended up somewhere in the Lower Ring I'd never seen. From what I've heard, the highest haven't used theirs in weeks; I don't think they know that something's changing in the magic."

"And did you think that this power we've been entrusted with would be easy? I'm not surprised that someone a weak as you is being found unworthy."

"But these days I can feel it watching me even from across the room, it-"

"Um, hey!" Xiaobao yelled to interrupt this conversation. The bickering men seemed to have forgotten that they were currently being menaced. "You all need to get out of here right now. We aren't buddies with the Islanders any more than the next guy but the city guards are already on their way so now's the time to make good choices." That could well have been a lie but these men didn't need to know that.

He took another breath and tried to make his voice sound mean. "And if you don't hurry out the greenies are going to find you with the favorite part of their job already done." Xiaobao smacked his bottle weapon on the palm of his other hand to emphasize his point. He hoped it didn't come to that. The stuff he'd just heard those men muttering made him uneasy. He was pretty sure he'd heard them say "magic".

Behind him several of the dockworkers had scrounged up improvised weapons in the form of what looked like a large pile of short metal belaying pins. They were either that or someone had required several hundred metal chisel spikes for something. In any case Xiaobao thought that the overall image he and his friends presented was more intimidating than these vandals were giving them credit for. He looked to his side and nodded to Li. He could see orange flickering light from inside that main warehouse. The one burning shed was safely contained by isolation in the yard but these men had already started other fires further inside the compound. This could get bad; who knew if Mihuito was storing oil or coal in there for his machines. The fire bells weren't ringing yet and Xiaobao had no idea if the guards would actually listen to Chouyu's message. He couldn't let these fires spread to the neighborhood.

Someone in Xiaobao's group took a step forward. The nearest vandal reached towards a satchel he had hanging at his side.

The mystery intruder growled to his comrade, "Well, I didn't join this thing to get my head caved in by some mud-sucking farm dwellers. We have our gods on our side! The power of true patriotism means none of us will risk arrest and these pitiful things will not even touch us. Nothing will interfere with our grand purpose!" He reached into that bag and drew forth a wooden mask.

Li laughed and it was only half nervousness. "Ha, these guys are cracked! Sure, get dressed up all you like! You're still going to find yourself face down in a canal!"

Xiaobao caught his hand on Li's shoulder. He'd seen those masks in action before. He'd seen men like that take down earthbenders. If those guys were here then this more serious than he'd thought. This wasn't looking good.

Still, he didn't need to fight them, just get them to leave. If they used some masks to do so quicker then more power to them. The two other vandals nervously drew forth their own masks, backlit from the growing fire within the warehouse. The longshoremen hesitated, inching closer together as they watched this demonstration. Then Xiaobao heard something land on top of the brick wall behind him. A small dark mass streaked through the night air and impacted one of the vandals, knocking the mask out of his hands with a gasp of pain. Xiaobao spun around and saw a single dark robed human figure perched on the lip of the train-yard wall behind the longshoremen. He recognized those scars across his cheeks; it was Ma'er. The rogue bender panted as he held his fist still extended from his earth projectile strike.

Xiaobao yelled out, "You! Seriously, are you following me?!"

Ma'er didn't respond. Instead he punched out again and a chunk of the wall exploded outwards to fly at the remaining arsonists. This time its primary target caught the projectile in his bare hand. A spray of dust blasted off the halted brick towards the man's face. However, those fragments now hit the Mask. Red wood snarled in a frozen grin above carved white fangs as bits of clay rattled off its surface. A dim yellow light gleamed in the eyeholes.

The other vandal stepped back and looked at the mask in his own hands. There was something that seemed like regret in his expression. Regret mixed with fear.

"Right. But only to complete our mission and get out of here without any casualties. We are the defenders of the people." The man was speaking only to himself as he raised the mask up to his face.

Xiaobao had seen these masks before but now something was different. Before, in the warehouse and on the Gaoli's the mask wearers had seemed stronger, faster, and more talented; as if each wooden artifact held hundreds of hours of training. However, tonight it was something more. As each man put on their mask a shudder washed over their entire bodies. Their heads hung forward like hunched beasts. Hands flexed open and closed in a constant patterns, the tendons standing out under the skin like taught ropes. Their masked heads whipped from side to side as if sensing some invisible presence in the air.

But those changes were not what made the neighborhood watch jump back. That was not what made Xiaobao regret all the decisions he'd made tonight, decisions that had placed these men, his friends, in danger. The magic of the Masks was now visible. A colored haze drifted around where the masks touched the vandal's skin. If shadows could have hue and be cast without light then it would be that which now lay across these men's figures. Then Xiaobao looked down at the real shadows that were cast long the ground by the growing fire in the warehouse. Those shadows no longer looked like those of men and they danced to the same strange rhythms of the fires which was now beginning to pulse with an unknown power.

"Colored shadows, like smoke." From his perch on the wall Ma'er's back sagged with weariness. "The Tribal girl said so. Well, now I can see it too. I will assume that's bad." He called down. "Boy! Get your friends out of here! You can't win this fight!"

Xiaobao opened his mouth just as the leading Mask threw Ma'er's brick back the way it had come. Xiaobao could hear its speed crack through the air. Then he heard a sickening crunch as it hit old Chouyu in the chest. In one instant he was there, in the next a crumpled shape was hitting the ground behind them. Then an inhuman roar rose up as more masked men burst forth from the burning warehouse. Xiaobao slowly turned back towards them. With a rumble, the ground before him erupted upwards in surging columns of dirt propelled by the earthbender on the wall. All Xiaobao had wanted was to protect his friends and their homes. As he fell backward he saw Ma'er launch himself above to join the fight. He had just wanted to protect people.

...


	50. Love

...

Mizumi had to admit, the water witch had risen to the occasion of the holiday. When Nia Mua entered Erliao's mansion not a single eye that landed on her did not stay transfixed. Her hips alone were enough to cause a scandal. Although Mua was taller than Ayika both women shared a certain characteristically Tribal set of measurements and here those features were magnified by layers of colorful ruffled cloth around the dress' waist. They swished above the shaman's thighs with each step. This was not a disguise. On a night when Mua could have hidden as anyone or anything she had chosen to magnify her foreignness. Her smooth dark skin was highlighted and exposed by as many slashes in the costume's brilliantly colored fabric as could be supported without giving way to total indecency. If Ayika was dressed as the moon, the sacred and true heart of the tribes, then Mua was every worst stereotype reclaimed, savage and lascivious and the object of terrifying longing. She stepped across the marble floor in open toed shoes, her leg sliding free of her dress with each stride.

The mask she wore was a tight net of blue beads held across her face by ribbon. It was stylized in the shape of a jawless skull. Tonight Mua had come dressed as beautiful death.

Mizumi looked away from Mua in sudden fear that someone had seen her staring that way but she need not have worried. The other party-going women were staring with comparable agog, while half the men seemed to be looking around expecting that this display was somehow a trap meant to test them. When Ayika saw their target she took a purposeful step forward towards the front of the mansion but Mizumi caught hold of her arm. Mizumi trusted Ayika and her judgement, usually, but she had proved to have a remarkably low tolerance for alcohol tonight. It might be best to encourage a pause before any decision was made. In fact Mua was rapidly striding through the halls in complete disregard for the planned weaving path of the party.

Mizumi pulled Ayika in close a if they were in huddled conversation. In the moments that followed, Mizumi felt her heart beating in her chest as the ripples of Mua's passing echoed though the party's population but still Mizumi tried to concentrate on that fearsome prospect instead of the heat and scent of Ayika who was proving to be very distracting even while standing perfectly still.

After a moment Ayika whispered, "She went on. We need to follow."

In a flash she managed to wriggle free of Mizumi's hand and confidently strode off after Mama Mua. Frozen for a moment, Mizumi noticed that Ayika sometimes also had a sashaying way of walking. Then she shook her head to focus on the potentially deadly matter at hand. With that liquor-induced blush creeping into Ayika's cheeks one of them needed to be clear headed. She hurried after Ayika, trying to stay just behind Mua.

The final large room of the party's winding course was centered around three long tables which would at any movement be covered with a dazzling display of edibles. The large concentration of guests attracted by this prospect was reigned over by the night's host, Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression Chao Erliao. The host had chosen the heavy yellow-gold robe costume option from among the appropriate noble's selections. In that last second before things changed, he seemed to be enjoying the party. although Mizumi saw him shoot a quick dark look at Mister Gaoli who had gathered his own little group over in the corner. Whatever rumors Goli had been spreading, Erliao did not appreciate them. Yet he did not have any more opportunity to dwell on this because that was when Mua broke out of the crowd and stepped forward into the center of the room.

Erliao had been deep in some conversation with a few guests but the instant he saw the tribal woman he stopped in mid sentence. His first look was one of pure disbelief. That expression then melted to confusion as Mua did not continue to stride towards him but instead swept through the party room and out a back door to the courtyard outside. Mizumi would have thought the minister would run for the hills at this first opportunity given how his last interaction with Mua had gone. However, instead she heard Erliao make a hurried excuse about seeing what this commotion was all about before he rushed out after her. The remaining party goers erupted into a flurry of mutters and whispers and many cast pained looks at the twice-used exit, wishing that the ironbound rules of etiquette did not forbid them from following that mysterious pair for at least five minutes. Fortunately, Mizumi and Ayika were not bound by local etiquette. Together they moved around the side of the room to sneak unseen out another exit a little ways away.

There were no lights lit in the outside courtyard but the mansion that surrounded it on three sides was filled with such vibrant illumination that what spilled out was enough to provide a reasonable facsimile of late afternoon. Despite Mizumi's emphatic gestures Ayika insisted on leading the way as they crept past shrubs and bamboo stands into eavesdropping position. She was still buoyed on by whatever amount of alcohol she had drunk, or possibly she simply did not understand Mizumi's tactical hand gestures. They really should have discussed a signal system. Fortunately, they did not need to creep far. Just ten meters away Mua was standing in the open beside an ornamental koi pond near the center of the courtyard. The two girls took up positions behind an large and pitted scholar's rock.

Erliao stormed up to Mua out of the long crossing shadows and instantly launched into a shouted whisper. "Nia?! How did you get in here? After your last ridiculous attempt to frighten me I could have you executed!"

Mua's languidly accented voice drawled out her reply. "Don't pretend ya haven't tried. It's not my fault ya couldn't find me, Chao. Fate has a way of working against murderers."

Erliao was now even angrier but there was also a small note of fear. However, it was still not as much fear as Mizumi thought would be reasonable given Mua's last attack. For some reason he was still convinced she would not really hurt him despite all evidence to the contrary.

"Again? Nia, I had absolutely nothing to do with Chen Lizhen's death and I don't know how you think I did. I am searching for those responsible! I've sent orders to comb every possible hiding spot for that villain. Now, stop this posturing. If you were actually intending to kill me in some misguided pursuit of justice you would have done so already." He spread his hands, his self assurance returning. "You're a bender, I am not, yet here I stand. You wouldn't have walked in through the front door where half the city saw you if you actually intended to commit such a brazen crime. There's nothing you could get away with here. So, Nia, with that settled I need you to tell me how you got into the Inner Ring!"

Mua evidently did not like that tone, or the minister's curious habit of addressing her by her first name. "I received an invitation," she snapped.

Erliao took a sudden step back. He looked around at the surrounding mansion walls and windows. That simple sentence was what brought him to the point of fear. He spoke quickly, mostly to himself. Mizumi could barely make out his muttered words from her hiding spot. "No. You're a planted distraction! Some adversary is going to use tonight as the opportunity to take me out of the equation! Someone must have known about our past and made use of that knowledge in their plans. You foolish woman, you were sent in to throw me off balance, get me alone! Gaoli? No, he's been making a public scene of himself here for an hour talking about you. He'd be the first suspect. But who else knew? Who else did Chao talk to before the end?"

Mua did not like being ignored, "Don't you say his name! You've no hold over me any more. Our past's finally irrelevant. I'm willin to pay for the betrayal Ah committed to Chen. And for all your scheming and politics there's one crucial thing ya missed in your calculations." A grin began to slowly slip onto her lips. "You've overestimated how much Ah care about leaving here alive." She opened her palms in front of her and strands of undulating mist began to rise from the pond-water behind her.

True terror finally began to dawn on Erliao. In an instant, a profound re-estimation of Mua flashed across his face and he realized he'd made a mistake. He turned and started to ran towards a nearby wing of the mansion but a whip of levitating water shot out and knocked him off his feet. He yelled out as he landed on the ground heavily, "Zhang! Help!"

A window slammed open somewhere in the mansion above but at that moment the courtyard abruptly exploded into an all-concealing fog. There was no chance of some archer or hired earthbender picking off Mua was a projectile now. She stepped forward. Erliao rolled over and tried to push himself backwards as his panicked words came tumbling out of his mouth "Nia, I've never done anything to hurt you! I never stole you away from Chen. You know that! We were just...it was a mistake on both our sides. We were young. And I never wanted Chen to die! Someone's twisted something and things are getting out of control-"

Nia Mua loomed over Erliao. In the thick fog she was a black shadow rising over a huddled form on the ground. "Given the time Ah'd love to find out just what you've done to tear apart the spiritual stability of this land. You and your filthy masks. Chen was trying to undo it. That's why you killed him. But that's for another to deal with now, Ah don't have time for questions anymore. In a choice between personal desire or even protectin this city, and justice for Chen, Ah know my answer. I'll choose Chen every time. I learned that lesson. And I'll gladly pay for my crimes against love."

Erliao was flat on his back with his gold costume grinding into the dirt as he darted his head left and right looking for any openings to escape. There were none. Ropes of water rose up out of the pool behind Mua like air-born snakes undulating to arcane rhythms, swirling faster and faster as they built up to cutting speed. Mua raised up her open palm to wind up the slicing final blow. Her hand jerked downward. Then she froze as she felt a knife blade press gently against her throat.

Mizumi whispered into Mua's ear. "Lovely holiday this city has. These costumes allow you to conceal so many things. Hello, Shaman Mua" The water ropes splashed down, free of their motive force as Mua halted.

No one could accuse Erliao of being slow to seize an opportunity. He was already on his feet and dashing off to the safety of the other wing of the mansion before he had time to even guess who Mizumi was.

Mua growled at Mizumi as she stood still, held by the biting metal against her skin. "You!"

"Yes, her." Ayika ran out to reveal herself. "Mua, please. You can still get away without this ending in tragedy. Erliao wronged you back then but you can't kill him. I know you still don't have any proof he's responsible for Lizhen's death! This isn't justice, this is just like what the Masks do!"

"Wronged me? Ha. You don't understand a thing you're talkin about." Her hands twitched up but Mizumi responded by pressed the knife blade tighter and Mua stopped struggling.

"I know that Lizhen wouldn't want you to be a murderer! He wouldn't have kept your picture all those years! He cared about you more than that, no matter how things ended between you two!"

Mua looked around as if seeing past Ayika. Then she closed her eyes. A smile crept on her lips. "You've got it wrong again, girl. I was the one who wronged him. Chao and I are both guilty. And now Ah mean to secure some small measure of forgiveness."

She suddenly stuck back with her elbow and pushed Mizumi off her. Mizumi yelled in surprise as she felt her knife slide across the woman's throat but Mua dashed off unharmed into the fog. Mizumi looked down and saw that the blade was now encased in a thick sheath of ice. She cursed loudly as Ayika ran over to check on her.

"Ayika! We need to get out of here or we will be arrested with her! No one else has seen us out here yet but that will change."

Ayika looked at the swirling vaporous white fog that had vanished Mua. This whole burst of violence had a very sobering effect which had left her head alarmingly clear. She nodded as she started to move back across the courtyard. "Right, we need to get back to-"

Suddenly a scream rang out from the other wing of the mansion. It was a man's scream and came from right where Mua had chased after Erliao.

Ayika was horrified. "She caught him."

Mizumi on the other hand was more perplexed. "Already? He had a head start and looked fit. Being able to bend does not make you run faster. If-"

Whatever else Mizumi had intended to say was cut off by the sound of smashing wood. Then it came again along with a cacophony of general destruction inside the building. Some powerful warriors were fighting fiercely. Erlaio's guards must have gotten to Mua and she wasn't going down quietly. As Ayika spun around she saw that Mizumi and her were no longer alone in the foggy courtyard. There was a hooded black shadow standing off to the side of them. Distracted by the cloud of alcohol still in her system Ayika could suddenly feel the reach of the spirit world. She realized who that had to be. The Nine-Step-Shadow had appeared to complete his announcement of Mua's death. The death omen had done it's work.

Ayika's neck felt tight as she watched the black shadow stand a few paces away. She wondered if Mua had seen the spirit in that final moment. She wondered if Grandma Aka had been right and it had provided some measure of comfort. Even as she felt the sinking feeling knowing what sad end Mua was coming too she couldn't help feeling relief. The death omen had not been meant for her or Mizumi.

Then spirit took one step forward and Ayika felt icy fear plunge through her veins. But in that same instant the night was shattered by a loud roaring howl that blasted from the direction Mua and Erliao had run to. Ayika jerked back to face this new threat so fast her neck spasmed. The touch of the spirit world retreated before one of primal danger. That was not a spiritual omen. It was a material, physical sound. This noise bounced across every wall of the mansion and vibrated through their very bones. The smashing sounds continued inside the building.

Mizumi stopped suddenly in the middle of her escape as she too spun to face the howl. "What was that?!"

Ayika felt a shiver run up her spine. She recognized that feeling, that sense of something at once beyond the material and yet all too physical. She knew what was back there. Power flowing across both worlds.

Suddenly there was a splintering crash and a thump in the ground several meters in front of them. This was followed by a human form rolling and sliding across the courtyard floor to settle near their feet. Then that form coughed and rolled over once more. Mama Mua raised herself up off the ground on scraped and bloody arms.

Panting, she said, "Hey. Your Masks are here. It seems ya were right, girl. Looks like they don't like Chao either."

Without Mua maintaining her water bending the fog was already dissipating. One gap in the wisps was now big enough for them to see a man step out through the hole of a splintered wood door leading into the mansion. The man was wearing a simple thin undershirt and light trousers but obviously he did not have to worry about the coming autumn chill. Red eyes glowed from behind the purple mask he wore and even now Mizumi saw him obscured by a shifting violet shadow-like smoke that clung to his back and limbs. It formed the suggestion of a second creature clinging to the back of each arm and leg, moving the human beneath like a puppet. Ayika had been right. The Masks were merging with hostile spirits.

How could anyone face that? Ayika could understand Mua's hatred from jilted love and festering guilt. She could even imagine Erliao's hatred of change battling with tradition. But within those carved sockets there was no hatred in the burning light, or any emotion that could be matched by a human heart. There was only power and unknown alien thought.

The frozen moment stretched. The Mask jerked and twitched slightly as he stood in the shattered doorway, as if his limbs were a new machine whose operation he was still learning. Then his head tilted back and he let out a laugh like grinding ice as he turned on the three women in the courtyard, his fingers curled like grasping claws.

...

Ayika panted as she ran through the mansion halls. Screaming guests fled in every direction around her. She was now terrifyingly clear headed. Few things were more sobering than fleeing for your life. The last few moments had been chaos. Ayika remembered Mua waving her arms to send the remaining courtyard fog flying together to solidify around the Mask in an imprisoning armor of ice. That man broke his arm free of his frozen bonds in a matter a second and laughed as he went about freeing the others. The three woman had run inside but the only reason they had escaped was by running into the very guards rushing out to defend Erliao against Mua. In that instant of collision the bashed and bloody waterbender hadn't provoked nearly as much alarm as the monstrous masked attacker racing up behind them. The Mask launched himself forward and proceeded to smash in amongst the mansion security. Ayika grabbed Mizumi and Mua's arms as they fled with the rest of the partygoers.

"How did the Masks get here?" Mizuni yelled as she ran down the hallway while still trying to support a battered Mua.

Mua gritted her teeth as the two girls accidentally half flung her into a wall while rounding a corner. "Ah don't know! Chao was running to hide in his bedroom or somewhere but someone must've been hiding in there already! Ah'd just saw the door close when I suddenly heard him scream bloody murder up ahead. It sounded like a bear was loose in there and then next thing that monster was bursting out through a solid wall! Ah couldn't hit the blasted thing more than once and when Ah did it was only 'cus he was a little busy throwing me through a door!"

"If part of the plan was for you to-?"

"Another time maybe, ladies!" Ayika was just concentrating on running. Her head may have been clear but as she panted she was noticing her feet were still a little more uncertain than she would prefer while running for her life. If she ever had another moment to think she would use it to curse Inner Ring alcohol.

Mizumi, however, seemed to have infinite breath to spend talking while running. "But why us? Erliao had to be their target, correct? The nationalists would have no reason to chase us? No one could even know we were going to be here!"

"And the nationalists shouldn't be attacking Erliao either but you saw that thing. That wasn't just a human in control!" By the end of that sentence Ayika could barely find air to push out the words. Screams rang out behind them. At one point they had to fight past green-badged men who were running towards the disturbance but no one questioned three more women fleeing from danger.

Ayika and the others made it out the mansion's front doors and halfway to the compound gate before they stopped to turn around. They could hear the clatter of a carriage rushing off down the outer road in a hurried escape. The driver could not be blamed. Mua braced her hands against her thighs as she tried to regain her breath. Ayika looked back across the carriage yard at the mansion's lantern illuminated facade. It looked so deceptively peaceful.

To Ayika's irritation and admiration Mizumi was barely winded. "Well, that was a disaster. Shaman Mua, your crazy quest is over. by now that assassin must concerned with his own escape. Let us find a servant. The coachmen should be just as eager to get away from this as we are to get to the station. We should be out of danger if we can slip out now before the guards arrive."

Mua was clearly in pain but she still chuckled mockingly even if it made her wince. "Fire Nation. Always so confident. Always sure ya know how the world works. Your people never really understand spirits. That was a possession. To spirits manifested like that in the material world shamans stand out like beacons. And we've got maybe the only two in this damn city standing right here."

Ayika was about to say something but it died on her lips as the main doors of the mansion were flung open. Or perhaps open was the wrong word. The righthand door was flung clear off. The three meter tall slab of thick wood pattered with embossed bronze briefly hung in the air before it crashed and screeched its way down the long slope of stone steps. Then Mask stepped forward, a dark shape casting a long shadow in the light that spilled out from the main hall. The purple aura around him was the most concentrated Ayika had ever seen it. It seemed almost like a transparent second body fastened to the man's back. There was blood on his fists and the mask tilted up as if it was sniffing the air.

She did not stick around to look any closer. All three women spun at the same moment and dashed towards the open gate to the road beyond the compound. Ayika glanced to the side and saw Mizumi once more held her knife in her fist, though what she planned to do with that against such a monster Ayika didn't know. Sneaking up on it did not seem like a wise prospect. Outside the compound wall it was dark. At least no one had tried to close the mansion gate. It was a tempting barrier now but would have taken all three of them to have any hope of moving the massive thing and from what she'd seen this Mask was likely to just jump over it or punch through it. That was not to say they had a better plan.

Thus far this flight had been directed purely by instinct. Now that they had gotten outside, it was clear that was not going to be enough. The carriage path wound its way across the stone bridge over a small stream and out through dark open fields and low grassy hills towards the distant lights of tram terminal. Right now that destination could have been outside the Outer Wall for all the good it did them.

Mua ran a few steps off the path and then stopped once more. So, she had seen their hopeless situation as well. Mizumi skidded to a halt beside Ayika. In a distant way Ayika managed to admire how the other woman's costume did nothing to obstruct her movements. She had also acquired yet another knife from somewhere.

Mizumi planted herself facing the gate behind them, a small blade held in each fist. "Ayika, run! Those Masks hate foreigners so I should be able to convince him to face me for a few moments. That can give you time to hide!"

Ayika grabbed Mizumi by the arm and spun her so forcefully that she nearly impaled herself on the knifes. She gripped onto Mizumi's arm so tightly her fingers hurt.

"No! You're not a damn hero! You're coming with me!"

Her throat hurt like she was screaming but for some reason she could barely hear her own voice over the blood pounding in her ears. A desperate fury like none she'd ever felt before raged through her chest. If the Nine-Step-Shadow had appeared in that moment she would have ripped off its ill-omened arms.

Mizumi looked up with pain-widened eyes behind her gold mask but somehow managed a smile. Backlit by the glow washing out from the mansion gate she looked like some ancient warrior out of legend. She was beautiful. "Like she said, that thing is after shamans. He will probably just push me to the side but that will still be a distraction." A roar echoed from inside the compound, breaking the silence of gurgling water and faintly chirping insects as it underlined the unspoken lie of Mizumi's words. "So run! Now! Ayika, please!"

In that moment Mua interrupted. "If ya all are done with the dramatic speeches, perhaps we could all get outa here? If ya don't mind."

Ayika and Mizumi both turned back to see Mama Mua standing in the middle of the little stream, floating on a small raft of ice. The two girls shared a look that confirmed that both had temporarily forgotten about the existence of waterbending. Both then ran and leaped out over the water as behind them the Mask darted out of the open gate behind them. Ayika found her traction on the little ice raft and grabbed hold to arrest Mizumi's slipping off that strange frozen construct.

Mua had other things to worry about. She raised her arms and the advancing Mask vanished to them as the whole world exploded into vaporous white. Mua then flung her arms forward and Ayika heard the faint sounds of fog bursting into existence down the path of the river, providing them with cover. The ice raft below their feet lurched and Ayika grabbed one arm around both Mua and Mizumi's waists as they rushed into waterbending powered motion down the stream. It was not until they burst into the starlight a moment later that Ayika noticed what had happened. Turning her head back she saw a line of fog stretching back in the opposite direction across the undulating landscape of the Upper Ring.

"You tricked it!" she said and immediately felt that such a statement was as painfully obvious as the night wind that was whipping through her hair.

Mua continued concentrating on her sweeping arm motions that carried them along the narrow watercourse at an incredible speed. "It won't last for long, even if spirits are easily distracted. But hey, what do Ah know? I've never seen a possession like that."

Mizumi chimed in through gritted teeth. "Just go!"

Their tiny raft of magical ice skipped and jumped as Mua guided it at bone-breaking speed along the narrow ornamental stream. They raced through night-shadowed green fields and rolling hills under the white moon. Behind them, the upper floors of Erliao's golden mansion stood happily shining out over the compound wall with their thousand twinkling lamps, oblivious to the tragedy within.

...


	51. Bells

...

The instant the earthbending adepts allowed the tram to grind to a halt at Kuang Harbor station Xinfei threw open the the Nobles Car's door before the attendant could reach it. Lili's golden passport had gotten them into the premium carriage but the first class moved no faster than the other car. Right now Xinfei could not bear to be moving so slowly. The Initiated were planning some big display in the Harbor Town tonight. Maolin was out there somewhere leading his stupid neighborhood watch program and Xinfei knew his brother. At the first hint of trouble Maolin would be running towards it; straight towards the Masks' "big mission". Xinfei's sandals slapped across the tram station's smooth stone until he skidded to a halt at the top of the grand staircase down to the town streets below.

Since the elevated terminal had only pillars along its sides instead of walls, from here Xinfei had an almost uninterrupted view of Kuang Harbor. He searched for any evidence of trouble, however, during the Festival of Veils the entire area was an eruption of riotous light and commotion. Laughter and music from below mingled with delighted screams and the pop of cheap firecrackers. To the south the silent towers of the Exclusion glowed bright and red as always. There was no way to determine where the Initiated were planning to strike. Xinfei cursed himself that he hadn't asked his brother where he was going to be posted tonight. Then something touched Xinfei's shoulder and he jolted in surprise only to see Lili's sympathetic hand laid against his arm.

"Don't worry," she said. "We'll find Xiaobao. All we need to do is-"

Lili was suddenly silenced by Xinfei's fingers pressed against her lips. He eyes went wide in astonishment but Xinfei wasn't looking at her. He was listening to something drifting in over the night air.

The noise was faint and distant but every resident of the Impenetrable City learned at an early age the sound of the fire bells. That was the third district station, ringing in double peals to signal its south was in danger. Xinfei remembered the last time he'd heard those bells, when the Masks had set the Gaoli warehouse on fire. Now it was happening again.

"The fire bells. That's where he'll be."

Xinfei dashed off down the long flight of stairs filled with purpose and determination. Lili distractedly touched a finger to her own lips before jolting back to attention and running after him down and into the milling festival crowd that celebrated their holiday oblivious to the masked danger lurking somewhere among them.

...

Xiaobao heard the clanging of fire bells in a distant way over the jumbled ringing in his own head.

He thought to himself, "Oh good, someone saw the smoke."

This might have been accompanied by some slightly more sensible thoughts if he had not just been tossed backwards onto the ground with enough force to send him sliding several body lengths. As it was he could barely make sense of the commotion that reigned around him. Fighting dizziness, Xiaobao leveraged himself up off the ground of the train-yard and tried to focus his vision on the fight taking place around him. Then he instantly had to raise up an arm to shield his eyes from a spray of dirt.

Ma'er was fighting the Masks and in this open nonresidential location he appeared to be holding nothing back. With a kick of his foot the ground before him erupted into a sudden spike of earth leaping up to strike a Mask who had been darting towards him in the weaving path of a hunting dog chasing a fleeing deer. Ma'er's power would have been more impressive if the Mask had not caught the elemental pillar in his hands just before it impacted his chest and instead used that lethal force to launch himself gracefully back through the air and land on the train factory roof. That glowing blue Mask instantly vanished into the smoke that was beginning to rise from the fires his fellows had started inside the building, off to some other mischief. Over the ringing in his ears, Xiaobao registered that there was something odd about how this fire was acting. It was something visible on a grand scale that was missing in the small lantern-flames he normally saw.

Ma'er stamped the ground to launch up another rock as a projectile but he was then forced to spin and use that same weapon to fend off another of the Masks who came racing forward. The Mask was hunched forward, his fingers dragging in the dirt like scraping swords as he ran.

Xiaobao scrabbled to his feet. A quick glance at his longshoremen friends huddled against the wall showed them to be battered but so far only poor Chouyu had been been hit directly. Li was crouched at the old man's side and Xiaobao didn't need to catch Li's eyes to know what he must have discovered. In the center of the yard, Ma'er was still holding back the Masks but his styles of earthbending relied on a level of mobility and concealment that this open testing track didn't allow him. The talk of fleeing the vandals had mentioned before putting on the masks was now forgotten. Now all Ma'er's magical power was barely fending off his attackers. Those attackers did not even look human. When the mask wearers moved from the blazing firelight to the nighttime shadows, a colored glow seemed to stick to them, like some other sort of creature was walking around within these men's skin. Monsters, who had just struck down old Chouyu and were trying to burn down all their homes.

Xiaobao felt sick. His stomach clenched and every limb felt tight and shaking. He heard a pounding in his head and his jaw ached with tension. He knew he ought to run but his vision was fixed on the snarling Masks who dashed around Ma'er's constantly shifting earthen fortifications. For a man as easygoing and gentle as Xiaobao, it was hard to recognize what true fury felt like.

These Masks had not spoken a single intelligible word since they donned their artifacts but then again they didn't need much coordination here. Ma'er presented a clear target and four of them attacking at once meant the fleet bender had no opportunity to run. There was an aura of unfocused playfulness to their vicious assault. That might have been why the shortest circling Mask was so surprised when a powerful arm suddenly struck him from behind hard enough to knock him off his feet. Of course with all the power surging through those faintly glowing limbs the Mask's recovery was the matter of in instant. Or it would have been, if in that brief instant a large calloused hand had not gripped onto his ankle and begun to swing his entire body up through the air. Then the hand let go and the Mask tumbled sideways through the night and impacted the metal side of the large demonstration train engine with a thud that seemed to ring out over the even the sounds of Ma'er's earthbending.

Xiaobao panted as he saw his target fall down to the ground once more. All the strength in the world couldn't help you if you where given nothing to push off of. It had been a good throw. He just wished that blue masked man didn't climb back up to his feet so quickly. The Mask seemed unsteady, shaken by the blow he had suffered but all the same he threw his head back and let out a screech that couldn't have been made by human lungs. Then it charged straight forward. Xiaobao knew his limits. He was big and had as many muscles as any man who worked for his living, but he wasn't fast. The Blue Mask moved like lightning and all Xiaobao could do was center his weight and try to meet it. He had no real hope.

"Xiaobao, down!"

Instinct carved into his bones by an industry that routinely saw limbs crushed by swinging crates took over and Xiaobao dropped to the ground. The Blue Mask had a moment to register confusion at the sudden appearance of another figure whose approach had been hidden behind Xiaobao's bulk. Then that moment was over and the Mask's attention was instead consumed by the meter-long metal girder that carried through with its arching swing against the side of his head. For the second time the Mask was flying sideways.

Li dropped the reverberating pole from his pained hands. "Damn the...Argh! Xiaobao get up!"

Xiaobao quickly pushed up off the dirt and leapt back into his feet. "Thanks, but Li, you killed him!" It didn't take a scholar to calculate the power that had been at the tip of that swing. Glowing magical masks and fear for their lives were the mother of all extenuating circumstances but the guards had a nasty way of applying the law very equally when it came to the towns outside the city wall. Anything could be called murder. Xiaobao could not help but think of the danger Li had exposed himself to for his sake.

Then Li's face blanched, but not for thought of legal consequences.

"What is that thing?!"

Xiaobao spun back and saw the man in the Blue Mask scrape his hand against the dirt. Instead of being shortened by one smashed head the Mask was whole and was slowly recovering on the ground. As they watched, the Mask managed to draw one arm under his chest and began to leverage himself up. Then from his half prone position he twisted his head around to stare back with inhuman anger and glowing green light.

The blue mask was still there and it was still a simple piece of wood, but within those eyeholes those were not the eyes of a man. Xiaobao saw only a shifting boiling mass like an angry storm sewer given life. It was staring back at him.

"Get the guys out of here," Xiaobao said to Li as he involuntarily stepped back. The sounds of the fight behind him had changed. He glanced around to see that Ma'er had taken advantage of the distraction the boys had provided him. What had been a pitched fight in the middle of the open yard was now an explosive pursuit as both forces launched themselves around the factory grounds, each propelled by their own differing magic. Streams of bricks smashed against the ground as the Masks just barely dodged the earthbender who refused to be caught at close quarters again. In fact, the Masks were now hampering their own actions just as much as Ma'er was. Several had abruptly stopped in their chase curiously examine some common tool, or to engage in some pointless destruction of a random table or wall. There was something scrambled about these men's minds.

Xiaobao knew he could be wrong but it seemed like the longer they had the masks on the more the attackers were loosing focus. Now was the time to leave. The Blue Mask would not be down for long and that one at least was not likely to forget them.

"Sun! Lasu! Grab Chouyu and get back! Now, before they-!"

He was interrupted by a voice from outside the gate to the factory yard.

It was some unknown person talking quite loudly. "Damn it, sounds like we've got someone here before us. Well, we got the word out to organize a bucket line so let's see what we...What the-?!"

The main gates were pushed open the rest of the way and a very confused fire brigade entered a scene out of a shadow opera. One of three factory buildings was halfway up in flames while two other small outbuildings were also blazing with strange fires that seemed to be obeying some law other than those that normally governed the world as the flames danced around in a seeming effort to escape. In this unearthly light, dimly glowing figures darted and leapt and smashed through wooden walls in pursuit of an earthbender that moved like the most dangerous sort of Public Safety agent but was barely protecting his own skin with massive eruptions of earth and brick. Then the Blue Mask off to the side finished getting to his feet and let out a howl like a surging rapids of screeching metal.

The Fire Captain turned so quickly that his earthbender badged hat flew off his balding head. "Kings and Gods! What is that-!?"

The Blue Mask's attention whipped to focus on the newcomers and it stalked forward on unsteady feet, settling into the slowly advancing pace of a hunting cat approaching an unaware lizard. The fire crew now saw the colored aura clinging to the Mask's back and their confusion had transformed into fear. They screamed and the Mask pounced.

It sprang forward only to be abruptly stopped by a shoulder-check to the side. Xiaobao skidded to a halt as he sent his foe flying and rubbed at his upper arm while he yelled to the fire crew. "For the love of...Get away!"

The Blue Mask was on the ground agin shaking its head trying to recover its equilibrium but the fire brigade's arrival had drawn the attention of others. Two more Masks emerged from a factory building where they had been causing some random destruction to curiously regard the newcomers. Driven by some ill-considered civic pride, the Fire Captain settled into a bending stance aimed at them. It might have been menacing if he was not shaking with fear.

Several of the longshoremen now seized an opportunity of their own represented by the briefly prone Blue Mask lying on the ground before them. A metal railway spike clonked against the Blue Mask's head repeatedly and four burly men leapt forward to each seize a temporarily uncoordinated limb. Someone with a good measure of sense reached out to try and rip the mask of this man's face but it was stuck on by something more than string, and no amount of pulling could remove it. Then there was a fish-gutting knife at the Blue Mask's throat.

"Stop right there!" Lasu yelled out to the other Masks across the yard as he twitched the knife against their captive's windpipe. "One more step forward and your buddy here gets to die for country! All right! Now we're going to walk out of here and then you can go kill all the benders you want!"

"Hey!" The Fire Captain took offense to those terms even as several of his terrified crew reflexively nodded their heads in agreement.

Whatever response Lasu had hoped for, it was likely not the one he received.

A distant booming laugh rang out, echoing as if coming from deep stone tunnel despite the case that the source was clearly the Mask standing only twenty paces in front of them. An otherworldly voice spoke with the sound of grinding stone and the breath of living mountains.

"Try, human," said the Mask from behind its carved face of green and gold. "Curiosity begs the answer. The night still lasts but what are the parameters of these doorways? With every passing of the sun champion's influence waxes. Tonight is Passage-Time, but do such traditions no longer hold preeminent sway? But let us have a test! Lay open that material body! For all your faults, humans have always been good at discovery." To Xiaobao all this was terrifying gibberish.

Nearly covered by a pile of burly captors, the Blue Mask almost threw off two of them when it nonchalantly shrugged with incredible force. Lasu nearly dropped his knife as he felt the captive press its own throat against the blade. Without any conscious thought he whipped the knife away before it bit into the masked man's flesh, propelled by the instinctive impulse against murder. The Blue Mask then stood up, easily shaking off the men each half again his weight.

The Green Mask sighed, "A dull choice. We shall have to provide our own amusement."

The Masks dashed forward. The Fire Captain raised up a wall of earth but the leading Mask simply jumped over it, soaring up before crashing down like a swooping eagle. But before he reached the ground something flew out of the dark and smashed into his side, sending him rocketing sidewise.

The ground rippled beside Xiaobao and magically reached up to catch Ma'er who fell down from the dark of heaven. He landed smoothly but stumbled slightly on the upset earth. He turned to the Fire Captain.

"They can't dodge while in the air."

The other Masks held off their attack, seemingly cautioned by their fellow's harsh treatment. However, there were many more now as the several who had been chasing Ma'er now came to join the central event. Against them stood two earthbenders and a disorganized rabble of longshoremen and fire brigade members. From outside the compound the clanging of the fire bells now mixed with the sounds of an approaching crowd, drawn by the prospect of an exiting drama and nor knowing what they were walking into. Xiaobao and his friends were caught between the mob and the monsters. Then the fighting roared back into action.

...


	52. Lords

...

Ayika clung tightly to Mua and Mizumi as she struggled to maintain her footing on this magical ice raft skimming its way down the stream through dark grassy hills and fields of the Inner Ring. Mizumi in turn was mostly hanging off Ayika as she absolutely failed to to stay standing on Mua's frozen getaway. Cold water sprayed their legs as they raced past another huge and sprawling mansion glowing orange amid the black fields under the cool starlight. Then they heard a howl in the distance behind them. The Mask must have noticed the deception in Mua's misleading fog trail. Fortunately, this stream took them close enough to the tramway station that they were able to leap off and, once Ayika picked Mizumi up from her face-plant into the bank, run the rest of the distance to the cavernous entrance.

The tram station attendants were a little shaken up by the sudden appearance of three damp foreign women, one of them looked rather like she'd been thrown through a door and then rolled across five meters of stone flagging. However, Mizumi flashed her gold passport and launched into a forceful and concise explanation of their need to flee from a violent attack at Erliao's party. It was either her force of will that convinced the attendants or the fact that she would occasionally slip into the Fire Nation language that led them to believe this issue might be more political than they were being paid for. Either way, the three women were allowed onto the nearest tram where they collapsed in the seats of the Noble's Car.

But they weren't leaving. The tram still sat in its track in the middle of this vast marble station. Ayika stuck her head out the window to scream at the earthbender adepts in her most biting mix of Middle Ring and Harbor Town dialects. The earthbender who leaned out around from his perch in the back of the tram might still have ignored her if those complaints hadn't been punctuated by screams outside the station doors that ended with two armored guards sliding across the smooth marble floor. Then the Mask was standing in the doorway and against the dark night behind him there was the suggestion of purple vaporous wings boiling off his back. The adept decided that it was in fact time to depart, suddenly in complete agreement with Ayika's plan to get down to the other side of a large wall.

The Mask swiveled his head around and locked on them but for once Ayika was glad that everything in the Inner Ring was built on such as preposterous scale. By the time the Mask had run a quarter of the distance across the station floor their tram was sinking down to descend through the transport tunnel and more off-duty earthbender adepts were running out to intercept his path. Then there was only unlighted stone outside the cabin's windows and Ayika, Mizumi, and Mua sank down into their seats with relief.

Mizumi however, was the least relaxed. "Do you not think he will be able to follow us down this tunnel?"

Ayika waved her hand feebly. "Relax, these tunnels are some of the most defended parts of the walls. Even a possessed man like that wouldn't be able to fight through half the army."

They both turned at the sound of a soft thud. Mua slammed her fist into her thigh again. She was trembling and not just from the amount of waterbending power she'd exerted. "No, that's not how possession works! If a driftin spirit starts to creep in a person it upsets the balance of mind or the health of body as its influence washes through. Willingly welcoming in a spirit into your body's the height of the shaman's art but even then the shaman only gets wisdom or some small bit of the spirit's authority. I've seen shaman warriors back home! They don't fight like that! They don't lose their human eyes! What are those masks?!"

As Mua raged, the one other occupant of their car, a neatly dressed man in the very front row of seats, gripped his bag tightly and scooted as close to the wall as his bench would allow. The three women continued to ignore him.

Ayika felt just as lost and confused but Mizumi was looking at her expectantly so she tried to concentrate over the sound of Mua now punching her fist into the back of a tram bench. "Something's changed. The masks and the spirit world disruption are all linked. Gold Toad told us there was an 'anchor' or something out there and that's what's causing this change. That's the mask that Ma'er gave to Lizhen, I think, and what the Masks killed him to steal back. Whatever that is it's what's drawing the spirit world close and somehow Ma'er's assistant, Tian, is hiding out in the city with it."

Her head felt light as she struggled to think through this web. She didn't even notice how Mizumi and Mua were watching her with a level of astonishment. She continued, "Now the toad spirit told us that you've spent nearly all your spirit world favors, Mua, and I've of course got no credit but there's got to be some way we can find this anchor to stop these possessions or at least weaken them! Even if it means spending your last favor."

Up in the front of the car their fellow passenger was trying very hard to not be involved in any of their business. From an outside perspective this attempt looked like hunching over in his seat while shivering.

"Gold Toad told you about that favor?" Mama Mua was indignant with an intensity that bordered on horror.

Mizumi did not appreciate her reaction. "Of all this, that is what you take away from the speech?! Woman, what are your priorities?!"

The tram's constant rumbling changed pitch as their downward slide halted and the earthbenders kicked them out of the dark tunnel and off onto the elevated track out over the Middle Ring. In many ways the night was just as dark outside the wall as it had been inside, but the dimly glowing expanse of festival candles and oil-fed street lamps out below was still comforting.

Muzmi looked out the window-space back the way they'd came. "Well, I can say that I had never thought I would look on those absurd walls with fondness but for once I am very grateful. The elevation of the Inner Ring must be at least one hundred...What is happening down there?"

Ayika jumped up to her side. She put her face right up against the window and shielded her eyes against both the interior light and the exterior wind as she looked back. Then she saw what Mizumi was pointing at. "Oh, that's the Jade Stair gate. You know, the way to walk up to the Inner Ring. I'm not sure who actually uses that, but there must be some strong licensed porters who make their living carrying...Wait, what's that?"

Then she actually noticed what Mizumi had seen. In the distance, little lights were rushing around out of the dark mouth of the stair entrance in a crazy fashion like glowing ants spilling forth from a crack in the sidewalk. In fact those lights now seemed to be chasing something. Something that was moving in the direction of the elevated tram line at a disturbing speed. Ayika had a sinking feeling that she knew what that something was, and the rate it was traveling was very worrisome.

"Mua? I think we'll be having a problem pretty soon. You said possessed people were drawn to shamans?" The earthbending powered tram traveled quickly, but it stopped at stations even if their earthbender might not prefer not to right now. And Ayika'd seen those Masks move faster than any normal human ever could. To someone like that, one jump and this elevated track-line would be just another open road leading straight to them.

Mizumi had made the same realization. She gulped. "Er, perhaps Mama Mua can form those fogs again? Or...no, we are on a track, it would not hide our path. No, but...But we must do something!"

Ayika turned backwards on her tram bench and looked Mua in the eyes, though the woman declined to meet her stare. "That man may have come to the Inner Ring to kill Erliao but I don't think whoever made those plans is still in control. When I first heard the Masks talking among themselves they were most concerned with avoiding attention and capture. What we have seen tonight's totally different. This...thing, didn't feel like a man at all. It feels alien. This is just a spirit now and I don't think it cares about the conspiracy it was brought in to aid. Instead it wants us." Mua was still looking away, her face twisted in the turmoil of her own internal thoughts. Ayika switched seats so she could turn around to face the shaman directly. "You still have one favor owed by the spirit world."

That got Mua's attention. Her head snapped up, the blue beads of her skull mask rattling. It was obvious that her first instinct was outright refusal. She'd set out tonight not expecting to survive. Now that Erliao was dead, even if by another's hand, the specifics of escaping were an overwhelmingly exhausting task she'd not prepared for. Her shoulders sagged but there was a rising fury in her eyes. Ayika was asking her to expend even more in pursuit of that old forgotten hope for survival. Ayika tried to meet that furious glare but it was too much. She looked away. Then Mizumi came over and sat backwards beside Ayika to add her hard stare, just as down behind the back of the seat her hand sought Ayika's and squeezed reassurance. This time Ayika squeezed back.

Neither of the girls could be sure exactly why but Mua's anger abruptly softened. She let out a single grunt that might even have been a laugh. Then Mua just smiled darkly as she turned to look out the window into the nighttime landscape of lights that streamed along below them.

Her voice was slow and lazy, absent of all the stress that had been boiling within her till now. "Word's gotten out of Erliao's murder. The guards'll be closing the gates between the rings. Not that this'd stop me, but Ah doubt that thing coming up behind us will give me the chance to show ya." She slowly breathed out. "Aahh, that favor. That last favor. You don't know what Ah did to earn that. What I paid."

"Nia, please," Ayika said, projecting out with every bit of force her personality could muster. She imagined she could feel energy flowing up from where Mizumi's palm grasped hers. They were racing along on the tramway high above the ground but in this moment of desperation Ayika felt rooted down to the bones of the earth. The Nine-Step-Shadow would not complete its prophecy tonight. She would not let it, even if she had to fight off the whole spirit world with her bare fists and wring Mua's neck until she finally helped. No one else was going to die.

The tram was just beginning to slow in approach to the first Middle Ring Station but when Mua stood up it was with such a snap that Ayika and Mizumi both jerked back in surprise. Mua's colorful festival dress was torn and dirtied but somehow it all still seemed to be part of the design. Even her bruises and bloody scrapes seemed drawn on by the designer's brush as the classical depiction of a character out of legend. She reached up and one graceful brown hand plucked off her beaded blue skull mask. It rattled softly as it dropped to the floor.

Then she laughed. "Ah well, the dead miser has as much as the spendthrift. And besides, Ah suppose Ah've always wanted to see this one again. As spirits go, he wasn't bad." Mua stretched out one hand towards them. Ayika stood up in expectation of some partnership among shamans but Mua instead gently grasped at Mizumi's wrist. Mizumi blinked in surprise as Mua's fingers began to inspect the gold bracelet she was wearing.

"This real?"

"Er, yes? That is to say, I believe that the gold is alloyed with other metals for improved hardness, but I do not know why-"

"That'll do."

Mizumi suppressed a yelp as Mua was suddenly holding up the bracelet in front of her face. Ayika had to raise her eyebrows in respect. That lift had been so smooth and quick that even the best street-thief would be impressed. However, Mua wasn't concerned with their reaction. Nor did she seem concerned with the otherworldly roar which burst out into a faint echo behind them. The tram lurched slightly as their earthbender missed a step of his qi driven propulsion technique. Mizumi, unaccustomed to the city tramway, almost fell off her seat at the sudden shaking but the two Water Tribe women took the swaying up into their bodies and remained planted securely on their feet.

With another flourish Mua summoned forth a tiny steel knife in her other hand, such as for cutting thread. In a sweeping gesture she nicked the side of her wrist and then touched the gold bracelet to the small cut. "Blood and gold," Mua said. "That's about right for a god of law, isn't it? Could probably call for less but time's a bit of a factor even if this's the festival night. Girl," she addressed Ayika without looking at her while she held the red stained jewelry out in front of her in the middle of the tram's central isle. "You'll assist. Just add your callin' to mine. You remember how I showed you."

It occurred to Ayika that Mua had enough abrasions on her skin to spare any amount of blood without the involvement of a knife but now was not the time to criticize their shaman as overly dramatic. Ayika clambered around Mizumi to stand with Mua in the center aisle of the tram. "Ok. Let's do this. What spirit are we calling? Shouldn't I know?"

Mua's eyes were already closed as she concentrated on something deep within herself. Outside the tram, Ayika imagined she could already hear the footsteps of the possessed Mask in slavering pursuit. It was closing in. Then she closed her eyes as well.

Mua's voice came in the dark. "You're have me spending my last resource, girl. I'm not goin' to half do this. We're summoning Blind Dog Lord."

The tram came to a halt at its first Middle Ring station and the poor man stuck with them in the Nobles' car raced out the door the second the platform attendant opened it. That same attendant peeked inside the car at the moment all the lamps in the station flickered slightly in unearthly unison. The attendant quickly snatched back his head and left alone the three foreign women performing a mysterious ritual. The there was more yelling outside as the adept earthbender who ran the tram seemed to have also noticed the chaos at Jade Stair gate. Having seen the Mask before, it seemed he had put two and two together for a conclusion of hurrying on his route as fast as this tram could possibly go.

Ayika held her eyes held closed as she heard the tram doors open and their fellow passenger dart out. Then the tram began to rumble again with the first hints of motion. Ayika tried to push all that from her mind, trying to recapture the feeling of the spirit world drawing close. But she couldn't shake off her knowledge of that the Mask was racing towards them to crush their heads in its otherworldly strength. That sort of thing was very distracting. She focused on her breathing, drowning all the anxiety in the steady motion of her chest in and out. Then she heard someone moving around above them to descend from the tram's upper deck and opened her eyes as she remembered that Ba Sing Se tram cars didn't have an upper deck.

Theirs now did.

Something about the quality of the light in the car had changed and now, by its unreal illumination, a narrow wooden staircase ran up the back wall through a suddenly existent gap in the ceiling. Slow and steady footsteps above them now made their way towards it. Mizumi jumped to her feet, her hand shooting up inside her sleeve again before she recognized that whatever was happening here was beyond any solution that a knife could provide. At a loss for anything else to do she rose up to stand just behind Ayika and centered her balance as if prepared to attack all the same. Ayika noticed that she could on longer make out the passing station outside the tram windows. Those spaces were now filled with a darkened blurriness lit by dim smears of lantern-light, and all the sound was muffled. They seemed to have somehow drifted out of sync with the rest of the world.

Mua's eyes were still closed as she stood with her back to those mysterious stairs, hands gripped tightly to the blood-smeared gold bracelet, her lips moving faintly in silent whispers. Then a foot came down on the top of the phantom steps with a creak. Ayika stepped backwards and bumped into Mizumi as there was another creak and black robes slowly flowed down the stairs, swaying forward with each slow and heavy step. The ceiling of the tram was eight feet above the floor and as this apparition descended, slowly revealing a broad golden belt set with a jade buckle, it was clear that it would occupy every bit of that space. It was not until it took the last step down onto the floor that Mua turned to face the spirit god, Blind Dog Lord.

Ayika's grandmother had told her stories of Blind Dog Lord. Some gods were raised by the ministers, noble men chosen to be empowered with ritual offerings after their deaths. Some were natural formations of powerful belief that created a mold for some formless spirit to flow into and embody. Others were spirits who had nominated themselves and possessed the strength to uphold their claim. Blind Dog Lord was all of these or something else entirely.

His rich robes were something like those of a government official but in some ancient fashion. The sleeves and hems were long enough to completely hide the body that wore them. However, his head and neck emerged unmasked as that of a ragged ancient canine who's notched ears brushed the ceiling, grey, emaciated, and with dry yawning sockets where eyes should be. But this sight was not pitiful as it might have been, instead authority and power roiled off the spirit with such intensity that Ayika felt her knees buckle involuntarily in a bone-rooted instinct to drop in genuflection.

Blind Dog Lord opened his mouth with its single yellow fang and each woman felt some small portion of air drawn up out of their lungs. He took a single step forward until he was looking straight down at the Water Tribe shaman. Before him, she so small.

The voice rolled out like the heavy collapse of distant mountains. "Nia Mua of the Water Nation, born in Cloudy Valley under Jade Dragon Mountain. Your request for audience is granted. Speak now of your petition and know that it is heard."

Before this looming spirit of black, gold and jade, Mua looked like a spirit herself in her ripped dress of colorful ruffled sashes over bloody brown skin. Both were equally removed from the normality of this city. Distant and muffled, tram vibrated with the burst of acceleration from each magic motion the worried adept executed his in his fear of what was pursuing, oblivious to what was going on in the car. Then Mua gave a single soft bark of a laugh.

"I suppose in your mind just showin up makes us even. With all Ah sacrificed to earn that. I suppose Ah could've expected."

The spirit gave no sign of responding to the underlying bitterness. He only said, "Cost is counted. Service is met with recompense. Even now."

Ayika bit the inside of her lip, recognizing the familiar misdirected anger on Mua's face. So she herself spoke up.

"Mua, we've kind of got a time pressure moving in! Do the exchange!" She suddenly remembered her manners. "Um, my Lord Spirit."

Blind Dog Lord did not so much as shift but Ayika suddenly felt attention press down on her like the full weight of the Outer Wall. Behind her Mizumi felt it too and found herself frozen, as much wished that she could somehow interpose herself between Ayika and this danger. Ten thousand eyes were now watching her in terrible judgment.

The spirit spoke again. "I know what pursues you. None will interrupt us while the petition is underway."

Mua sighed and reluctantly laid out her wish. "Blind Dog Lord, I request that you intercede to protect us from those spirits who are chasing us with the bodies of their possessed hunan allies."

Suddenly, Ayika interrupted. "No!"

Mua spun around in confusion at Ayika's outburst. "What? This was your idea!"

"No, I mean I... Wait a second." Ayika thought quickly. This was the most powerful spirit she was ever likely to meet face to face and they were requesting a service. There had to be a way to solve more than just one of their problems with one wish. That purple aura'd Mask would be on them in moments but there were also other Masks out there doing something terrible to the connection with the spirit world and Nine-Step-Shadow was still drawing closer to one of the three of them. She actually had a chance to fix things here. If only she could find a way to master the words.

Ayika struggled to make her clumsy mouth obey her racing brain. "Lord Spirit, we request that... you ensure that...All the spirits who...choose or are forced to follow us three here before you...with ill intent...be banished from influencing this world or have their power reduced to the point of being harmless!"

Her hands were shaking and her armpits felt damp with the burst of mental exertion she had just went through but Ayika was suddenly triumphant. She didn't think she had ever felt her brain work faster before in her life. As far as she could see no one could safely fit more into a single request without twisting the rules of language and grammar beyond their breaking point. Still, all the stories of wishes gone poorly her grandmother had ever told her were swimming through her head mocking her for this confidence.

Mua stared at Ayika in confusion for a long moment before turning back to the spirit with a shrug. "Sure, what the girl said. That. I want that."

Blind Dog Lord straightened up, somehow now even taller than the tram car ought to allow yet still comfortably fitting inside. Then he answered.

"No."

"What?!" Mua snapped. "After all Ah paid to-!"

The spirit held up one sleeve-shrouded arm. "A wise administrator does not interfere in what is written. As much as I may disapprove, spells of life and death are being cast over this, my sliver of the city and it is not my place to interrupt a ritual before its completion. Such an operation is years in the making and ten thousand minds are its components even though they do not know it. I too have superiors. I too have debts."

Ayika was at a loss. Their prayed-for rope had just been yanked back from their grasp and now she was drowning. "But, but...if you don't..." Nine-Step-Shadow, the spirit of death, was still drawing closer. At Erliao's mansion it had only been a few paces away. And if it was not foretelling Mua's death then it could be after...

Blind Dog Lord interrupted her stammering. "But I will gladly comply with the intent of the original request." Those withered spectral lips tucked back in what might have been a canine smile. "Priest Nia Mua, I lend you a portion of my power. My authority, respected as it is within this small section of the city, may not be able to halt the great machinations but local festivals are well within the purview of my court. The rules of rituals are precise and exacting, and harsh on those who break them but the rules of the Festival of Veils are...looser. Tonight it is acceptable that the visiting spirits might find their subsidized crossings canceled even before the sun rises. That will remove the immediate threat to you, at least."

Then he turned and that withered eyeless head stared straight at Ayika. "But beware, the greater crisis is growing. The restless ghosts stand at the edge of worlds. Soon they will all burst forth and even I can do nothing to stop that. You humans must find the key and play your parts quickly, all of you. The price must be paid for reward to be received."

With that final word the spirit suddenly moved. Before Ayika or Mizumi could react the spirit's sleeve drew back and a dark claw shot forward into the center of Mua's chest. Mizumi pushed forward but Ayika held her back as she realized that the spirit's arm hadn't pierced Mua's shuddering body but instead had disappeared inside it with a cloud of hazy light at the border between them. The rest of Blind Dog Lord's looming form slowly began to fade away, becoming nothing more than a transparent shadow rising before the woman until it vanished entirely. The pervasive touch of the spirit world seemed to retreat and lead them back to the realm of normality. The rattling of the tram's stone track suddenly returned to full volume.

Ayika reached out towards the shaman's arm.

"Mama Mua, are you...?"

Mua spun around but her eyes did not see them. In fact they began to roll up into her head. She faced a blank wall but somehow if was clear her attention was focused on something far beyond the little rows of seats in this tram car. Then her hands shot up and she began to make the smooth sinuous motions of waterbending. Nothing happened. In this dry train on an elevated stone track far from the canals or rivers, there was no material for her techniques to touch and yet still she danced in those arcane stances. Outside the now unshadowed windows Ayika could see the next station quickly approaching up ahead. Her heart sank as she saw station guards advancing to halt the tram car. They yelled out at the adept earthbender who continued to pant out his own motions for his qi energy to propel them along no matter what the station might say. He could hear the Mask's roar, now all too close.

"That is...unsettling," Mizumi said looking at Mua's performance. She sounded as if she could not remember an appropriately strong word to describe this behavior. "At least the lights are back to normal. I mean that I can see outside the tram again now and...oh."

There was the sound of yells from outside them. Ayika ran to the side of the car and suck her torso out the window to look back at the elevated stone track slicing across the city under the shadow of the gibbous moon. Light from festival streets bled up at allowed Ayika to pick out the approaching shadow that raced along the top of the track. The Mask had finally caught up to its prey and he dashed forward with another screeching roar. Ayika heard their adept yell something not fit for the mouth of a government employee and the tram blew straight through that Middle Ring station without slowing down in the slightest. By now the glowing shadow that clung to the Mask human host were gaining a distinct outline. The purple edges of filmy wings wavered into sight as the possessed man burst forward and slammed through terrified station guards in his pursuit of the departing tram. He was like an unstoppable stampede.

Ayika yelled back inside the car. "The Mask's still here! Mua, you've got to get him-!"

Mizumi interrupted. "No, Ayika. That is not what stopped me before. That is not what i saw. Look, I think she is already addressing the problem."

Ayika had trouble hearing Mizumi exactly over the rumble of the tram wheels from her position half outside the car. "What are you..." Then she saw it too. "Oh."

Dense mist spilled up over the edge of the open-walled tram station. It was a sea of impossible fog, massive, endless waves of thick white vapor rising from the streets and alleys below. Then Ayika spun around to look out across the city and saw it was everywhere, in every direction. As far as she could see across the Middle Ring, roofs were vanishing like sinking ships beneath the slow undulations of an opaque airy sea that swallowed even the shining lights of the festival. Sheets of white mist blended with the festival lights to blanket the city in a shining golden haze. This was sorcery beyond what any human was capable of. Then the fog thickened and the light beneath faded. The endless web of lantern-strung streets melted away into the depths as the white finally rose up to swallow the tram tracks themselves.

Just before the mists closed over them Ayika turned back to see the Mask encounter a drift of the vapor slowly dancing his way across the station floor. As the mist touched him he suddenly thrashed and collapsed forward. The glowing purple spirit shadow disappeared from around him before he hit the stone floor. Ayika's last sight was three station guards leaping on the now prone man's back. Then they were lost in a dark sea as in the very edge of hearing there was a faint sound that might have been the echoing howl of a dog.

Ayika pulled herself back into the car trusting that the earthbender adept could both follow a track and was as interested as getting to the next station as they were.

"Well that...worked?"

She looked back at Mizumi who was still regarding the swaying motions of Mama Mua with a level of suspicion that indicated those knives in her sleeves could reappear on less than a second's notice. Ayika said, "Is she out of it yet?"

Mizumi frowned and leaned a little closer, still hesitant and fearful. "I do not think-"

Mua coughed loudly and Mizumi jerked backwards, barely halting herself before she slashed out with the blade that sure enough was now clutched in her fist. For her part, Mua was just holding onto a seat-back for support as she continued to cough. When she finally straightened up she didn't pay any attention to Mizumi's knife or the steady stream of muttered profanity in the Islander language. Instead she turned around until she found Ayika.

"That...is not pleasant."

"And what was it?"

Mua shrugged her shoulders forward, a gesture which a distant part of Ayika's brain noted made her wide-cut top briefly slide even lower down her chest before returning to its previous post.

"Blind Dog Lord was sending a message. But for doing stuff effectively in the material world even spirits like him need some material conduit. He decided to use my waterbending. Bending acts a bit odd when it interacts with spirits." Here she looked out the window, such as it was. They were still rushing along but there might as well have been a sheet hanging over the portal. "Even stodgy old spirits like him tend to be flamboyant when they get about it."

Mizumi said, "All right. I may not understand spiritual matters but we seem to have reached some resolution at least. We should probably look to our other problems. I can only assume that we have drawn attention tonight, city law enforcement attention, and more than we would like. The earthbender operating this tram will probably try to have us arrested at the next station on general suspicion. We should take this time to prepare our alibis. After all, despite our best efforts I do not think we have actually succeeded in doing anything against the local law. Well, Mua tried to kill a minister but the victim was murdered by someone else so that will be hard to prove that the attempt happened, us being the only witnesses." Mizumi didn't sound as if she was even convincing herself.

Mua's coughing now turned into hoarse laughter. "Alibis? Law? Ha, they've not got us chained yet, girl. I'm a waterbender surrounded by a sea of fog. No one's catchin us. That is, if ya two are up to boltin once we hit the next station."

Mizumi's had raised an eyebrow to indicate that she saw Mua was bruised black, blue, and looking uncertain about keeping her own knees under her while the other two women were miraculously unscathed. Silently Ayika had to agree. If Mua was planning to continue her magic then Ayika and Mizumi would be carrying her before too long.

With a skeptical inhalation Mizumi continued, "That still leaves the matter of the ring gates. I understand protocol is to close them in response to crisis. You yourself told us that. The murder of a minister and the subsequent rampage of a possessed man in a mask seems to me to be a crisis. How will we get back to Kuang Harbor?"

Mua waved her hand to dismiss these worries. "Relax. I also told ya that closed gates mean nothin to me. I've got mah own ways around this city."

...


	53. Safety

...

Xinfei and Lili were getting close to the site of the Kuang Harbor fires. The epicenter of the commotion seemed to be in one of the small manufacturing districts that were scattered throughout the town. It was still the festival night, so Xinfei had hoped that these industrial streets would be relatively unoccupied. Unfortunately, it seemed many of the other Harbor residents had the same idea to head towards the disturbance. That spectator's instinct always infected most of this city's population. It was probably just what the Masks wanted; more witnesses and victims.

While Xinfei could only think about reaching his brother, Lili was using what little spare breath she had to interrogate other people in the crowd that pushed ever forward to watch whatever was going on some blocks ahead. Startled by the sudden appearance of a pretty girl with a smooth Middle Ring accent, most of them complied involuntarily and instantly.

One volunteered, "There's some big fight, there is. Monsters and earthbenders all fighting it out! I hear even Public Safety was routed!"

Another would be spectator pushed closer in the rushing crowd. "Nah, Public Safety never even showed up. It's the nationalists, they're here to kill everyone whose ever taken a foreign coin! And I hear they've raised a spirit army!"

Lili, not conditioned by physical labor, was struggling to keep up with Xinfei but she still managed to reply between panting breaths. "If...that's true...then...why are you...running towards that?!"

The man shrugged as he jogged. "Might be something to see, isn't it?" Others around him nodded in agreement.

As they got closer, the crowd slowed and compacted as people began to cough from an invisible haze of smoke that now filled these streets. Above the roofs, thick dark plumes reflected lamplight as they rose to merge with the black sky. Then as they neared their final destination Lili caught sight of a name painted in clear block characters on the wall encircling an industrial compound.

It read: _Miohuito International_.

Lili groaned as she tried to catch her breath, "Oh, my father is not going to like this. Or Mizumi for that matter. Xinfei, for the love of...wait, I..."

Xinfei had been slowly pulling away from her, driven by the heavy pit in his stomach from each thought of his brother. Somewhere far behind them, Lili heard shouting that sounded like several city guard members trying to force their way through the crowd, though they were making no better headway than anyone else. But now there was a change in the flowing, converging traffic of the street. There were screams ahead and half of the would-be watchers were attempting to flow upstream back the way they'd come. Someone slammed their shoulder into Lili and for a moment she thought she was going to fall but then Xinfei's hand clamped around her wrist and pulled her back to her feet. Both Xinfei and Lili were rather slim but they were also both tall and were able to leverage that to their advantage in fighting their way through the swirling human current to get closer to the site of the fires. Then they broke though the final skin into the large halo of empty street that surrounded the entrance to the train-yard.

The first thing Lili noticed was the wooden fire brigade cart smashed against a brick wall, spilling out its load of dirt onto the street. Rather, the very first thing she noticed was the burning factory building whose harsh heat beat against her cheeks but that black and blazing tower was too big to fully take in. It melded into the background of the scene in the way the fiery sun melds into the blue sky and the crackling roar was loud enough to be inaudible. The next thing she noticed were the explosions.

In the middle of the street three earthbenders had set up an ad hoc set of defenses made from paving stones and fragments of the now rather dismantled brick wall even as their qi loudly ripped apart even more. Of them only one was wearing a government uniform and that was that of a fire brigade captain. Another was dressed in a now rather ragged festival costume. The third was only wearing simple dark robes but he was obviously in command as he shot out rock after rock at a blistering pace at their attackers. Their stand might have started as an attempt to protect the property here was now, in the interest of survival, they were doing nearly as much harm to their surroundings as the fire was.

The attackers they battled were just as fearsome. At first it seemed the earthbenders were firing their attacks at a small army because as Lili's eyes darted back and forth to each resounding crack of shattering stone there was always a different form darting away from it to meld with the smoke and dust and now the rising nighttime mist. Then she came to recognized that these masked men were moving faster than she would have thought possible. They weren't men at all. These things glowed with dim shadows clinging to them and strange lights shining out through the holes in the masks on their faces. Lili was beginning to admit that Ayika might have been talking sense when she had mentioned spirits, but when she opened her mouth she just found herself screaming.

Then one of those men or spirits or monsters made a dash for the panicked crowd of spectators up the street and the earthbenders were too hard pressed to stop it. Fortunately, there was another group out on this street. Between the fire and magical battle and the crowd that was now trying to escape stood a small band of men. They were clearly nonbenders, and their clothes and costumes were of the poorest sort but never the less they stood firm as that glowing, growling masked monster charged forward.

"Hold and strike!"

The leader of these men yelled out as his front ranks hefted crude but heavy metal clubs with two hands. Those behind them threw bricks that the Mask easily dodged. Well, dodged for the most part. No matter how light on its feet that glowing semi-human thing was there came a time when there was simply nowhere to go. A flying brick clipped its thigh as two metal clubs came down inches away from its head. It jumped back, tilting its masked head from side to side as if analyzing the problematic humanity before it.

The tall young man leading the street defense yelled out again, his height and his black headband aiding in picking him out of the group. "That's right guys! Put the fear into them! We got this! Just need to hold off a few moments more and the guard will be swarming all over here!"

"Xiaobao!"

The young man in the black headband whipped around as he heard Xinfei call out.

"Xinfei? Why the hell are you here?!"

Xinfei ran forward and stumbled to a halt before his brother amid his fellow armed nonbenders. "Me? I came to get you, you idiot! Why are you still here? Run!"

"I can't. There's still...Xinfei, who's this?"

Lili had run up beside Xinfei but now she was hunched over gasping to get her breath back as she reached up to undo her green lace festival mask, suddenly cursing how much time she'd spent making sure the thing was securely attached to her hair. Eventually she managed to look up, unmasked.

"Hi, Maolin. I like your headband."

Xiaobao looked back at his brother with an expression of disbelief greater than any Lili had ever seen before.

"You brought Mister Gaoli's daughter here? You flipping-!"

Someone yelled behind him. "Incoming!"

Xiaobao spun around to see that the Fire Captain was now lying flat out on the pavement. Ma'er and the one local earthbender who'd run out of the crowd to help fight the Masks were not looking much better. Ma'er was now only using one arm in his magical gestures and attacks. Their weariness meant they were less interesting opponents and so there were now two of the Masks who'd grown bored and were focusing on Xiaobao's augmented watchmen instead. Xiaobao looked at the glowing masked men with very little of the fear that painted the faces of his comrades, only weary determination. Lili now noticed that while Xiaobao wielded the same long length of metal that many of his fellows bore he held his in only one hand. The orange light of the fire washed over his bare arms as his muscles flexed in exertion.

When he opened his mouth his voice roared out over the thunder of the burning building. "Stand against them! Protect your homes!" As both glowing Masks began to creep forward Xiaobao burst forward like a charging stallion to meet the one on the left and prevent them from joining up together. Behind him the other men also roared their challenges. A few more volunteers even ran up from the crowd down the street to join them in providing protection.

Xiaobao ran at his chosen foe, sparing only one glance down the street at something. "Let's have it you monster!"

The Mask met him with a wild swing that Xiaobao firmly blocked with his arm but nevertheless still sent him sliding back by its incredible force. Xiaobao tried to use that moment to take a swing at the Mask's knees with his club but the thing saw this attack coming and jumped up to avoid it. Behind the glowing mask that man was grinning but now Xiaobao was grinning too as he suddenly dug his feet in and transferred his block into a grab that allowed him to spin and throw the Mask. For a brief moment the Mask was in the air and all his strength was useless. Then a man-sized slab of stone flew out of the darkness to erase him sidewise from view.

The Mask and his slab both met a brick wall with a smash. Down the street Ma'er finally fell down to one knee after that attack, the exertion of his magic catching up to him. The lone earthbender standing beside him was looking as if he sincerely regretted his decision to come help. Three Masks advanced on him, colored shadows boiling with suggestions of wings and tails and tentacles. The situation looked hopeless and all Lili could do was look up at the dark sky in a silent prayer to the good spirit gods of the city. Then there was suddenly something rushing through the air high above her.

There were seven Masks scattered around the street and in the now exposed factory yard, engaged both in battle and in random destruction. Then, within a single second, each one was driven to the ground by something smashing down on their heads from above. Their supernatural strength had them rising to their hands and knees with in a moment but at that same time there were six sounds of something landing on the tile roof of the building opposite Miohuito's train yard. Six dark robed figures rose up to stand against the starry sky and silver moon. As their hands darted out in violent gestures the ground burst forth into surging stone chains that sought to wrap around the Masks and drag them down to an earthen tomb.

"Thank heaven! It's Public Safety!" Lili yelled out and was only dimly conscious that this was probably the first time those words had ever been uttered in that precise order.

Several of the Masks managed to burst free of the magically animated stones that clutched at them but the others were caught fast. This display of earthbending power seemed to finally penetrate into whatever minds these inhumanly acting Masks might have had left and those that could darted away on glowing limbs before leaping off to escape. They swung and bounced their way off into the distance between rooftops with incredible speed, making their way toward the direction of the Wall as three of the Public Safety agents broke off to chase after them. The remaining Public Safety dropped down to the street level, the ground gently rising up to cushion their falls. In unison they thrust their fists downward and the captured Masks were wrenched further down under their confining bounds of earth and stone. The Masks roared and wailed as they thrashed in attempts to escape. As that unearthly noise buffeted the street the nearest agent actually stepped back in surprise, a rare reaction from the secret knives of the government.

Then a new Public Safety Agent emerged from some shadow as if it had birthed him whole. Unconcerned by the destroyed street, gnashing teeth of possessed captives, or the large and growing blaze that lit this whole display he smoothly walked over to the center of the torn ground where Ma'er was panting and clutching at his injured arm.

Ma'er looked up as Inspector Yang stopped beside him.

The Inspector said, "It seems that your assessment of their spiritually enhanced threat was correct. It might be assumed that there are more than eight of these masks still in circulation? We have received word of another single sighting in the Inner Ring tonight as well as possible action in the Lower Ring."

It was all Ma'er could do to nod, even if that sent stabbing pains through his dislocated shoulder.

Yang gave the slightest grimace. "So these four captures will not lessen their capability. It is always dreadful to have a capable enemy."

The Public Safety Inspector strode across the rubble tossed street, the weighted hem of his dark robe flowing over the rocks and torn slabs like liquid mercury. In the rising mist mixing with the smoke and fire, his calm and composition was just as terrifying as any other monster. He stopped before the nearest buried captive Mask, watched over by one of the agents. The Mask had fallen silent now and seemed almost resigned to his sunken captivity.

Yang ignored all the supernatural signs which bubbled off this confined man and instead bent down to grasp the blue wooden mask by its edge and yank it off. It didn't budge. Yang frowned. He could see the back of this man's head despite whatever faint aura was clinging to him. The securing strap that held the mask on had long since been cut and yet it still adhered to his skin. Yang did not understand and he didn't like things that he did not understand. Then the confined Mask suddenly surged forward with a burst of strength and broke one arm free from the imprisoning earth, swinging at his captor. Yang flicked his hand and snapped more magical stone bonds into place but he was shaken.

The Mask twisted his head up to look at Yang. Those were not human eyes within those wooden holes. The words he spoke echoed with a sound like the roar of a distant hurricane of fire.

"Until next time, human. The crossing grows ever easier as you build the fire higher. The next challenge will find us stronger still."

After that the captive Mask would say no more despite how much the agent squeezed his bones with the stones that held him. He only smiled.

Inspector Yang spared a glance over at the crowd of civilian spectators. Normally Public Safety's first priority with such a strange case would be containment of information, but with hundreds of witnesses who'd arrived before the Agency that option was not available. Within two hours half of the city sector would know some version of what had happened here.

A little ways off, Ma'er leaned back onto his heels as he tried to stand up without reigniting the smoldering pain in his arm. With this nighttime fog beginning to clog the air, the chances of the dispatched agents catching their fleeing prey was low. Those Masks wouldn't be caught off guard by a surprise attack twice tonight. The mists that rose the canals reflected orange light from the burning factory and began to seem even more concealing than they would if the night had been completely dark. Barely visible vapor tendrils slowly flowed up side streets towards the site of the fight, now bringing their haze towards the fallen combatants. In the distance Ma'er heard a dog howl. It was a sound distinct from the strange sounds made by the possessed masks but somehow not different enough for Ma'er's comfort. He saw Yang turn around as if he too was concerned by that lone beast's commentary.

Suddenly there was a clatter on the ground behind Yang and the inspector spun back to see his captive suddenly unmasked and coughing violently, wide eyes and confused by his nearly complete burial.

"Ahh! What!? Ahh! Somebody help! What happened? I...How did I..." At this point the man managed to look up from his fallen blue mask and recognize the dark green uniform of the man looking down at him. He recognized Public Safety and that apparently answered a lot of the questions he had. After that he hung his head and fell silent, although now he at least responded to the interrogative shiftings in his stone bonds with the traditional screams of pain.

Ma'er didn't understand what had just happened but right now he also could not bring himself to care. The masks were off. His arm shot out a new lancing bolt of pain, hot against the chill misty air. Let Yang try to solve this. Ma'er had tried following hunches and instinct tonight and it had just gotten him into an outnumbered fight to protect some idiotic harbor dwellers. Well, one of them had shown some sense. That tall fellow in the black headband had done all right for himself, and even managed to instill some modicum of order among the rest of the rabble. That was the only reason no more of them had died. That guy had been with the Miohuito and Gaoli girls on the night of the Fifth Hill riot too. For a moment Ma'er considered the possibility that the boy was some plant of Yang's but no, the Inspector would have wrapped this up much more quickly if he'd had a reason to trust the reports of spiritual involvement.

Apparently, Yang had decided he had more important matters to attend to than a retired Dai Li so at the moment no one was paying much attention to Ma'er. The other agents were involved in preparing rendition bonds for the newly unmasked combatants and constructing double-security evidence containers to transport the suddenly inactive masks. Off to the side, one agent saw to holding back the crowd of spectators who'd very quickly forgotten their previous fear the instant the fighting had ceased. As Ma'er began to limp off down the dark and hazy street he felt the temperature rapidly shift from the radiating heat of the burning factory building to the chill of the night mist.

Suddenly someone drew up next to Ma'er; someone who didn't move like Public Safety. Ma'er's defensive instincts were dulled by bone-deep weariness but fortunately he recognized Xiaobao quickly enough. Beside the young man were the other urchin kid, now dressed in a fake jeweled vest and furry armbands, and none other than the daughter of Aizhang Gaoli, now all in pale green. How she'd fallen in with this crowd, Ma'er was no closer to understanding but of all the chaos gripping this part of the city some inexplicable class mixing was the least of his concerns.

Ma'er nodded to Xiaobao and then concealed the pain this motion provoked. The young lunk nodded back respectfully and said:

"I've got to thank you, mister. You saved us back there."

" _Rrm_. Where's your tribal friend? The girl. She was seeing the magic on these people before I could. If she has some special sensitivity she could be a key asset to solving this crisis." Ma'er felt distantly uneasy about the prospect of handing over some young foreign girl to Yang, even if it was the sensible choice. He'd been out of government employ for a long time now. Unhelpful instincts like mercy were creeping in.

The skinny boy interjected himself into the conversation. "Hey, we're not saying nothing to someone who obviously lied to us. You told us you weren't working with Public Safety anymore. You've clearly been following my brother since that you nabbed us off the Fifth Hill. Our friend's going to stay safely away from you. Even if I knew where she was."

Lili Gaoli stepped forward. "She's with Mizumi at the party right? Mizumi told me she was going to invite her along but I suppose she might have kept that as a surprise."

"Lili, don't tell him anything!"

"Relax, 'the party' is hardly a direction tonight. If he wants to search ten thousand festival parties across the whole city he's welcome to."

Ma'er's tired mouth replied almost without his intending to, "So she's in the Inner Ring near the Kuang tram line gate. Sub-Minister Chao Erliao lives up there."

Lili suddenly blanched at the thought that she'd given away far more than she thought possible. "...No? How...?" The other two boys blinked in surprise, evidently they hadn't known to begin with.

Ma'er sighed. "Mizumi is a Fire Nation name, and there aren't many in the city who have any contact with that sort, whether positive or negative. Also, Public Safety had reports of another Spirit Mask attack in the Inner Ring and by now I expect you kids to be at every trouble site in this sector. Since there were two crisis points tonight I guess you had to split up to reach them all." A long career had taught him the world was preposterously improbable with infuriating regularity.

All three kids stopped, frozen, as Ma'er continued his hobbling. His shoulder really hurt. He wasn't looking forward to the trip back to his Lower Ring house especially since he now remembered that the Harbor Tram had been discontinued for passengers. His assistant Tian wouldn't be home to welcome him with a drink and bandages this time. The young man was still missing somewhere out in the city, thrust into something far over his head by Ma'er's own ego. But distracted as he was he still heard the whispered conversation being held behind him.

"He's hurt."

"What of it? He's government. They'll take care of him."

"I don't think so. That Public Safety Agent hardly even glanced at him. Look at him, he needs to see someone."

"Well, who'd we even take him to? Ayika's Grandma Aka isn't around anymore."

"What about that Mama Mua? Isn't Ayika training with her? She's a healer if Mizumi's letters are right."

"I guess, but Ayika sounds like she still had doubts about that one. And I still don't even think we should hang around this guy. We should focus on getting Maolin out of sight. The government doesn't like people who start organizing things like his neighborhood watch."

The muscular young man in the black headband took control of his friends. "He saved me, Xinfei. We're helping him. Um, sir?" He now addressed Ma'er with the curiously soft voice of a large boy who'd tried to learn to hold back his strength. "We know a healer who's fairly nearby. She's a waterbender."

Ma'er stopped walking. He had heard about the Water Tribe healers before, and under the expected disparagement of foreign superstitions what he had heard had sounded complimentary. Also, his shoulder did really hurt. And in the end, what would it really matter if he followed these kids? There was a time when Ma'er would have considered a fight like tonight a learning experience. After all these years, he'd learned enough. He tried to remember his training regarding waterbenders and then quickly resolved himself to not caring. His own city was sprouting spirit possessions on each corner, who was he to judge a little foreign magic?

He looked Xiaobao in the eye. "All right," he growled. "Lead the way."

...


	54. Fireworks

...

The night was black in the outer edge the Harbor Town that pressed up against the City Wall. The sudden and strangely far reaching fog that had risen up across miles of the city in complete disregard of the walls was already dissipating, leaving only a quiet gloom. This near the wall, some of the canals, sewers, and aqueducts that were destined to return to the chained and splintered Kuang River bubbled up into existence in large dark pools. These waters had spent long hours traversing through the criss-crossing tunnels that carried them through airless paths under the massive city wall and now they rushed upwards propelled by the speed imparted through their compression. Ba Sing Se, as always, was only impenetrable from one direction.

This one particular pool which birthed this particular canal was now behaving a bit strangely. If anyone had been out at this late hour of night they would have been surprised to see the ripples representing the central upwelling of water begin to change and vanish. Then they would have been even more surprised when a single massive bubble lifted up the whole surface in a black hemisphere and then broke, spitting forth a narrow canal boat risen from the depths, populated by two women clinging to both the wooden slat seats and each other while a third stood in the middle with her arms spread open-palmed. The waves of their appearance splashed over the edge of the pool and canal that led off between buildings as the rebounding ripples crashed back and forth.

One of the seated women, dressed in red and gold, stood up so sharply she almost toppled out into the water as she nearly lost her balance.

Mizumi spoke loud and flatly into the night.

"Under two ring walls of Ba Sing Se. Crushed and bashed through dark water-filled tunnels in a bubble of stale air supported only by the magic of a woman who introduced herself by trying to kill me. I am never doing anything like that again."

As soon as it was clear that her boat was not going to capsize Mama Mua collapsed down into a sitting position and sat there breathing heavily.

"It got ya past the gates, didn't it?"

Ayika slotted the canal boat's motive oar into its rear mounting. It seemed that she now had command of this vessel. "Let's get Mua back to her house for now. We can worry about the rest later." Neither of the other women seemed prepared to argue with her right now. Ayika gripped onto the oar and began to dig it into the black water as her arms worked back and forth, guiding them in what she could only hope was the right direction for Mua's dwelling.

Mua was deposited in her house with a minimum amount of fuss. Ayika managed to extract a promise that the woman would stay put until they could coordinate a plan to deal with all the night's developments but Ayika was also pretty sure that Mua would have mumbled agreement for someone to lop off her arms at this point. The woman was exhausted and had come to the end of both her spiritual authority and her quest for vengeance. There was little left to animate her.

Ayika felt drained as well as she ushered Mizumi outside and closed Mua's door behind them. It was difficult to call tonight a victory by any stretch. Erliao was gone, by the hands of the Masks who were apparently now attacking conservatives as well as reformers. Not that Ayika was sure the purple masked thing that had chased them down the tram track was capable of understanding politics. The Masks had been borrowing strength from the spirit world, but now it looked like the spirits were in control once the masks were on. And the Nine-Step-Shadow was still approaching one of the three women. What had Blind Dog Lord said? Someone was casting a ritual of life and death over the city. Right now it felt like it was the city itself that was weaving this spell and Ayika was trying to stand up to the full hostile might of Ba Sing Se. It was all too big.

Ayika looked to her side where Mizumi was regarding her with concern. Mizumi's deep red costume was disheveled and marked with dirt in a few places but somehow that only made her look more beautiful. Ayika had to get her back to the Exclusion safely. That task at least was small enough to concentrate on. They walked together out into the night.

Closer to the center of the town the streets were still crowded with pedestrians but that was not surprising on a festival. What was surprising was the energy that those crowds exuded. This was not the same atmosphere they'd passed through during their departure a few hours ago. Even Mizumi, a foreigner, quickly caught wind of the rush of huddled conversation and suspicious looks. Ayika decided to find out what had occurred during their absence. She chose one woman who was talking much louder than the others about her speculations on the credibility of someone's news.

Ayika caught her attention with a wave. "Hey! Yeah, you! We were in a party but what's going on that apparently everyone else seems to know? Sounds like something happened."

The woman blinked as she turned around to face Ayika. Whatever angry response she was about to belt out got swallowed as she reconsidered. "Who...Um, yeah. Er, apparently there was some big brouhaha over near the assembly yards. Public Safety even showed up but a bunch of buildings were already up in smoke."

It took Ayika a moment to understand what had caused this woman to refrain from the traditional insult portion of street conversation. Then she remembered her costume. She was still wearing the dress of purple or blue and the silver disks that showed a clear presence of money and therefor authority. All that on a girl of the Tribes would be confusing but anyone growing up in the city would have learned to show respect for money first and then wonder how they got it.

Now one of the woman's friends wanted to join in. "Yeah, I heard that it was a big old fight. A bunch of the city conservatives got down to that Islander Miohuito guy's metal engine factory and the whole thing is gone."

Behind Ayika, Mizumi breathed in sharply. "Miohuito?"

The first woman broke back in, "Yeah, I think that's the one. That or some other of those foreigners. But the point is that those ring-dweller folks are down here trashing the place and they've got some weapon. Some new bending technique or spirits or something. Even all the guards are scared!"

"Yeah and now the greenies are all at the Bridge of Fire protecting the Exclusion instead of us their own neighbors. I heard a bunch of the people fighting with Public Safety got away. Believe that? Ming said that they were beating the agents bare handed! Wearing masks made of living monsters!"

"That sounds like..." Ayika was not sure what to say. Things were worse than she had thought. The Masks were not hiding their power at all anymore. And they'd specifically been targeting Miohuito property. She looked at Mizumi. If these women were right there was a full and frightened guard detachment between them and her home now, and violent Masks lurking in the streets hunting Islanders.

The gossiping woman continued, "This city's been going downhill for years but this is just too much. The ministers get to live in their fancy rings but they've got a responsibility to make sure we're protected, don't they? Now we've got people out tonight looking to beat up any Islander caught out or anyone who's too friendly with the such. And I'm sure there'll be just as many of the other sort fighting back."

Her friend stamped her foot for emphasis. "Hey now, all this trouble wouldn't be here if it weren't for those damn Islanders trying to drive everyone out of work! They've bought off enough merchants to shovel all their stuff into our shops and now the only jobs are going to be off in the Fire Nation!"

"Oh come on now! That's just for ritzy stuff. Who's going to buy a basket or a spoon from across an ocean? I say that..."

These women were once again involved in their personal debate and had forgotten about Ayika and Mizumi. For her part, Ayika looked over at Mizumi who was unconsciously touching cheeks as if missing her mask. Even after that woman had mentioned the guards at the Bridge of Fire Ayika'd been entertaining the thought of bribing some boatman to sneak them across the Exclusion moat, with some of this costume jewelry as payment if necessary. But if the Masks were now open knowledge then there would be supporters of their supposed ideology who would be emboldened. And tonight they would all be wearing disguising costumes, a boon to the heart of any coward. It was too far to the Exclusion.

Mizumi had obviously been thinking the same things but in her traditional fashion had elected to ignore those worries with bluster and confidence. "All right, there are thugs on the street. Well, it is good that we are already in disguise. And after the other things we have faced tonight no conservative supporter is anything to us, right Ayika! Lead the way, I am...I am a small bit lost on these streets."

Ayika nodded and grabbed her hand, leading Mizumi off the main streets and down a snaking path of back alleys and makeshift paths bolted to the sides of backstreet waterways lit by the shreds of light spilling out back doors and rear windows. However, soon enough even Mizumi noticed that something was wrong.

"Ayika? I...We are not going in the correct direction to arrive at the Exclusion. I know enough to know that this is west not south."

"Right."

"Oh," Mizumi paused to process this answer. "All right then. Is this some secret way to the Exclusion?"

"No."

Ayika did not to look back at Mizumi to recognize the trusting but irritated expression on her face.

"Would you mind terribly telling me where you are taking me then?"

Together they crossed one last makeshift bridge that was in fact just a single brittle board laid across the narrow water-channel that flowed below them, reflecting in its black flow the few stars able to burst through the city's light pollution tonight. Then they squeezed between two houses built of crumbling grey brick and stepped onto a small dirty street that seemed to abruptly vanish into thin air twenty meters in front of them. A sea of distant candlelights gleamed up from the darkness below, while great stone bridges stretched out over the vast, jumble-filled depression. Even in the city of ten thousand gods there were some places that got overlooked, and a great many people too.

Ayika gestured out at the buildings below them. "You can't go home right now. Not safely. So you're going to my home instead. Mizumi, welcome to the Bed."

...

Nia Mua collapsed onto a stool in the rear corner of her house where she could lean back against a wall for support. The stool was actually a little too far away from that wall for comfort but she wasn't prepared with the mental fortitude to scoot it back right now. All she really wanted to do at the moment was to fall into her bed and perhaps never wake again. But she still needed to clean her scrapes and cuts so she had a pot of water boiling over the fire she'd clumsily coaxed back into life. Now she was just waiting. Luckily, she'd managed to find a rough brown bottle of some high-proof drink within reach of her blindly searching hand. The liquid burning in her mouth and throat at least gave her something to focus on and the promise of better things to come.

There wasn't much else that could do so now. The possessed man, those Masks, they'd taken everything she had left; her vengeance, her absolution, her last bit of hard-earned spiritual power. And if Chao Erliao had been targeted by the Masks that meant that that he hadn't arranged for them to murder Chen after all. The spirit omens had been wrong, he wasn't connected. She'd attacked him for nothing; just another betrayal. It had all been pointless.

As the bottle touched her lips Nia shuddered in a laugh, almost choking on the alcohol which splashed back into her mouth. She rested her head back against the wall with a dull thud as a bitter and tired smile played across her lips.

"I'm sorry, Chen. I really tried. Ah guess that Ayika girl was right. Of course she was, ya knew she was smart when she worked for ya. You always could choose right, except when it came to me."

She closed her eyes to the dark room lit only by the glow of the low fire under the kettle. The neck of the brown bottle was still clenched in her fist.

"For me, Ah've got nothin more. Ah stayed away from you for too long and now...If your soul's stuck on the border between worlds Ah'll quiet your ghost if Ah can but...Ah can't fight those things, those Masks. Ya can't ask that of me. It's too much. Please, just let me fail."

Three sharp wooden knocks rang out. Nia opened her eyes to look at the front door. She couldn't bring herself to be surprised or afraid. That could be the guards, although such a response time would be remarkable. It could be Public Safety but she didn't think they would knock. Nia leaned forward to rise up off her seat with a great grunt of exertion. As soon as she stood, her palm spread open into a waterbending stance out of pure reflex. Then she closed that hand. With what little energy she had left she had as much chance of fighting off anyone with bending as she did parting the broad ocean itself.

She walked over to open the door.

A young woman of the Kingdoms in an elaborate green costume was in the process of knocking once more when the door suddenly swung back and Nia was revealed in front of her. Behind the girl, two men were standing on each side of an older third man as if skeptical of his ability to continue remaining upright unaided.

The fancy girl piped up in a rapid Middle Ring accent. "Mama Mua? The healer? I understand that it is very late and a holiday as well but we have a man here who was attacked by some people who were...What happened to you?"

The Middle Ring girl had noticed Nia's scrapes and bruises. She appeared ready to launch into another flurry of questions but Nia held up a hand and just turned to walk back inside, leaving the front door wide open.

There was a brief moment of hushed and hurried conversation behind her.

"Are you sure we can trust her?"

"I think Ayika and Mizumi do. But the question is do we tell her it was the Masks?"

"Shush! What are you...Oh wait, Ma'er, mister, um if you...Well, I guess he made that decision."

Nia looked up to examine the injured man who'd just walked into her house and had only spared the briefest flicker of inspection for the clattering multitude of wooden spirit charms that hung from the ceiling. He was over forty and rather grizzled from his greying hair to the faint scars on his jaw around the mouth. He held himself well but Nia's professional eye determined that he felt even worse than she did right now. The other three were just kids, if a strange mix of one rich girl with two harbor boys. Well, they knew Ayika and the Fire Nation girl. That could explain a lot of strangeness.

Nia cast her eyes up at the dark ceiling hidden behind the faintly clunking spirit charms hanging from the beams. Was this some message from Chen, or was it just another random collision in this massive living city? Did it even matter?

The kettle was almost boiling.

She turned to her new customers. "All right, you in the dark green who looks like ya lost a fight with a brick wall, show me where you're hurt. The rest of ya, sit down and keep out of ma way. And someone close the damn front door!"

...

Mizumi followed Ayika as she threaded her way past the last houses on the edge of old riverbank of the Kuang and over the lip of the street onto a set of stone steps that looked like they must have led down to water level in some long distant past. There were rounded granite knobs set into the stones that centuries ago had been used to tie up boats. Mizumi accidentally kicked one of these knobs slightly as she edged away from the drop that lay beyond. A bit of gravel slid over the edge and down into the dark. The water was long gone and the river had left a sloping half-paved bank that led down to the uneven waves of ramshackle houses built from splintered wood, cracked tile and crumbling brick that was the Bed. Ayika easily danced down the makeshift stairs which continued down along the rest of bank as a haphazard assemblage of different materials. From time to time she turned back to reassure Mizumi along in the descent. Mizumi smiled back, she didn't want to admit that she was recoiling from the smell rising up from below so she hurried on.

When they reached the bottom of the old riverbed their route struck out from the bank on a very narrow twisting path between rough, cramped buildings. This winding string of brick and planks was barely wide enough for three people to walk abreast and in places hardly had room for two. Then Mizumi noticed that they had not reached the bottom of the old river after all. These houses were built up on pilings or crude elevated foundations and all around and under them was a floor of dark and fetid water. They were in a riverbed after-all. Mizumi prided herself on bravery but as she threaded her way through these narrow uncertain alleys she could not help thinking that this was the kind of place in a foreign port where her father had assured her she would be murdered the instant she entered. And she was here wearing a gold headdress and silk.

She and Ayika were not the only people still out in the Bed tonight and others had noticed the finery the two girls were wearing. Mizumi pulled closer to Ayika as she felt the eyes on her from open doorways and crude balconies of the narrow houses and stacked apartments they passed.

One of the locals was the first to speak their mind. A woman with a dark skin tone, probably a tribal like Ayika, leaned her shoulder against a doorframe and called out, "Hey, you sure y'all in the right place with that metal?"

Mizumi's instinct was to ignore this jab and press on to whatever their destination was but Ayika stopped dead in the narrow street and planted her feet. She turned to look up at the woman and pointed firmly at the silver disk pendant laying above her own chest. This drew looks from the other alley-dwellers who squinted in their direction. Then Ayika burst into laughter.

"This?" She pointed straight at the silver pendant. "Ha! Did you actually think this is real? Woman, I've never see this much _steel_ to own and you think I'm walking around here wearing silver? Well, at least that's a compliment to my costuming and I'll be sure to tell the paint-seller he's got a good product."

Ayika's voice had changed again. The faint accent she usually repressed was out in full force now and she sounded as broad as any of the boatmen Mizumi had heard calling out across the Exclusion moat. The woman in the doorway looked embarrassed and irritated. Now that the target had revealed herself to be another resident of the Bed the other street-dwellers eagerly reversed the focus of their ridicule. However, Ayika was not about to let something like this go. Seizing on a strategy of camouflage by way of attention she grabbed onto Mizumi and yelled out at the woman again as she gestured to the gold headdress.

"Hey, this look like gold too? My friend here's been freaking out that she messed up her painting and that's why none of the boys would dance with her up at the Dazhan square thing. Hey, come on, don't be like that! Come back!"

The woman who had called them out had now retreated back into her house as several men down the narrow street were starting to laugh. Behind her sparkly silver mask Ayika theatrically rolled her eyes with such force that her whole head followed their arc. She sauntered up to the laughing men with Mizumi pressing as close to her back as she could manage. It was a bit of a struggle while stepping over the uneven transitions of the path from stones to wood to, in one place, just a gap down to black water that they stepped over.

One of the men clicked his tongue approvingly at Ayika's display and she just snorted dismissively in response. Then she gestured her head vaguely and said:

"So, Hasook's thing still going? There's something going on up in the town that's got guards shutting down all the festival parties we knew of."

The man smiled, showcasing teeth that were yellowed but strong. "Yeah, Hasook's should still be going if you're from those parts. You girls were up partying with the townies? What, hoping to snag yourself a citizen?"

"Ha! Well, we sure didn't dress up like this for you lot. Come on, Yaki. Let's get moving."

It took Mizumi a brief moment to recognize that her name was now Yaki but she caught on quickly enough and hurried after Ayika. Once they were away she whispered:

"That was clever but why did we not just remove and hide the jewelry before we came down here if it was going to cause this much trouble?"

Ayika looked at her with a smile and half a laugh. "In the dark these things might be painted tin. But if we weren't wearing this lot then they'd be looking closer at the clothes and I've got no explanation there. You can't paint cotton into silk. Now stick close to me, if an outsider like you got lost here I'm not sure I'd ever be able find you again."

Mizumi saw the truth in that. No more devious maze had ever been devised than the winding alleys of the Bed. She also suspected that tonight made things even more complicated. The Festival of the Veils was a very different affair down in the Bed from what Mizumi had seen in the city above the waterline. The elaborate costumes were missing, and in fact many people didn't even bother with the strips of colored cloth or paper that she'd seen the poorer native residents wearing up above. Now that she thought of it, Mizumi might have expected a community of immigrants to completely disregard a holiday native to this city but it seemed that the Bed was not about to let any opportunity for celebration pass them by. Mizumi had to grin at this attitude.

Down here in this neighborhood what passed for city squares were barely the width of small streets above but tonight they were packed with residents celebrating with greater abandon than anywhere Mizumi ever had seen. The smells from the foul pools below were masked by the aromas of grilling meat and splashed remnants of of cheap liquor. As the girls passed one gathering, a hand snaked out of the press to grab Ayika's arm and tug her into the swirling ring of a dance. Ayika joined in happily.

There was a moment of anxiety as Mizumi lost track of Ayika among the dancers and realized to her own surprise that she had before this on some level been relying on Ayika's skin color to spot her in a crowd. But down here in this section of the Bed half the population were tribals. Mizumi even saw one or two faces that looked like they had come straight out of the Fire Nation. All the stray bits of the world seemed to flow down to collect here in this wild assemblage of a neighborhood.

Small drums were beating and their rhythm was infectious. Mizumi found herself clapping along as she watched Ayika twirl and spin in the middle of the dancing circle. Her guide had torn off her silver mask but none the confidence and commanding presence she had assumed behind it followed that disappearance. This was Ayika truly at home. She gestured over at Mizumi to join her in but Mizumi vigorously shook her head while laughing, sure that she could not match whatever heavy stepping, hip gyrating motions Ayika was joining the other Water Tribe women in.

When they broke free of this particular celebration a few moments later Ayika threw her arms around Mizumi's shoulders, laughing as the stress of the night had been forgotten even for a moment. Mizumi had to ask:

"What gods are you honoring down here?"

"Heh, the Bed doesn't have any gods. At least none we know of. By the standards of the City this place is positively new, only a few centuries. I guess sometimes people mockingly give thanks to the Kuang River for suffering imprisonment for our sake. But the River temples are all closed and these people left behind the spirits they knew in whatever homeland they came from." Now Ayika glanced up and caught sight of the corner of a vaulted aqueduct above the roofs ahead. Apparently, that was a landmark to her. "Come on, we're almost to my place!"

Ayika's home was at the very end of the Bed, at the edge of a half-moon pool of murky water that pressed against the foot of the river wall. Overhead in every direction Mizumi could see the supported pillars of canals and sewers that had been haphazardly extended to chase the departing river and now all converged above them towards the dam wall that marked the Kuang's reforming. There was less commotion here but there were still people out in the streets, sharing snacks and conversation with their neighbors in lieu of some of the more raucous parties. Now Ayika did remove her silver bangles and helped Mizumi with her own pricy ornaments, muttering something about her family believing some stories more easily than others.

As they stepped onto the shaky walkway in front of those low buildings seemingly built half of brick and half of ship timbers Ayika abruptly slowed. Mizumi didn't see her face but she could sense that Ayika was seized with sudden embarrassment for the poverty all around her. Miuzmi wanted to say something that would tell her friend that none of this bothered her, but before she could open her mouth a darker voice in the back of her mind whispered that it really did. There was a sharp line dividing their life experiences, one that would not allow its self to be ignored.

Then some people sitting on benches up ahead spotted them and Ayika transitioned into yet another personality. There were Ayika's parents and this was now Ayika-with-family. A strong looking man, his skin tanned far darker than Ayika's, called out cheerfully to his daughter in a rather thick accent Mizumi assumed was that of the North.

"You're back already!"

Ayika's mother looked up from where she had been fiddling with something on the ground near the wall of the apartment. "Ayika, who's this? And where'd you get those clothes?"

Ayika said, "Yeah, this is Yaki, she works in the back of the laundry. Her folks are from the United Republic. Yaki, my parents: Kadat son of Makon, and Maekayae."

Miuzmi began to reflexively bow, catching herself as she transferred into the style of of the Kingdoms instead of the Nation's forms. A young boy began to giggle before receiving a sharp look from his father. Mizumi focused on hiding her accent as she said, "It is very nice to meet you."

Maekayae made a sound of unidentifiable meaning. Then she nodded and looked back at her daughter. "And where exactly'd these fancy things come from? You're not snagging are you?"

"Mom! No! Anyakya's gets lots of fancy customers too and those folks are so picky. Things get a wine stain or a candle burn and they're all ready to throw them away. Boss let us girls have a pick of the discards they turned out so we could wear them tonight before she parts them out into normal clothes tomorrow. A little perk."

To Mizumi this story sounded very reasonable, but Maekayae had known Ayika much longer and only replied with a long, low "Hmmmm" of provisional acceptance.

Ayika hurriedly moved past that subject. "So what you all doing back here? Oakas get tired?"

Oakas piped up, "I'm not...!"

Maekayae gently but forcibly interrupted. "Hush, you are and you're going to bed soon enough. But right now we're doing the offerings for Grandma Aka. She always said the dead come closer on this night here. City land, city rules."

Ayika was surprised. "What? You were going to do that without me?"

"You were the one who was out who knows where. We weren't going to keep Oakas up till whenever you decided to come back."

"Hey! I said I was-"

Ayika's father Kadat broke in between the bickering mother and daughter. "Come on, Ayika's got a friend here. Let's not keep ol' mum waiting."

Mizumi stood awkwardly back a pace as the family moved in together to what Mizumi saw was a tiny little wooden shrine that had been set on the front stoop of the apartment. It held several strange carved figures and the shortest clipped incense sticks that Mizumi had ever seen. She supposed the sellers might charge by length. Maekayae set down a little plate of dried fish on the alter and then let Ayika perform the lighting, a peace offering of sorts. Ayika performed the little ceremony, saying something brief in the language of the Water Tribe.

When Ayika looked up Mizumi noticed her glance around briefly, as if searching for something. Then Ayika had a look of sadness pass across her face. But she turned back to her family and the expression was gone as if it had never been. There was a sense of comfort around them all. It was a simple, unobtrusive ritual, but it had power because they believed it did. Then it was over and the family returned to their drinks and snacks, chatting, joking, and chiding. Mizumi never knew Ayika's grandmother, but she was pretty sure any departed soul would have liked this.

Kadat made an effort to welcome Mizumi, under the name of Yaki, to join them in what remaining celebration there was. Mizumi tried to gracefully accept but Ayika had other ideas and instead drew Mizumi with her as they drifted off to the side, making an excuse of having already danced a lot. The little brother mimed drinking a bottle of something with a devious grin, which earned him another light tap from his father.

After a moment Mizumi saw Ayika gesture to her as she disappeared around the corner of the little apartment that bordered her family's. Mizumi followed to see Ayika climbing up some unevenly protruding boards that stuck out of the wall, taking care to direct her feet around the hem of her costume dress. Well, Mizumi was not about to let Ayika get away from her that easily. She followed Ayika up, hand over hand until she could lift herself up onto the roof. Mizumi saw Ayika casually walking across the battered and patched roof of tiles and planks.

Mizumi gestured down below their feet. "Are the people who live in this space beneath us going to appreciate us on this roof?"

Ayika laughed and her voice was soft and sweet.

"Nah, I saw them all down at the dance. And I used to come up here all the time when I was a little girl." She spun and sat down heavily as she leaned against a small plank propped up on the short chimney. She patted beside her and Mizumi picked her way across the roof to join her.

Ayika tilted her head back and looked at the few stars visible through the pervasive orange glow of the city. Mizumi sat beside her, shoulder to shoulder, trying to think of something clever to say. But then Ayika broke the silence herself.

"The Festival of Veils is a Kingdoms holiday. But holidays have power where they're believed in. The spirit world echoes that belief. I guess we saw that tonight. My grandma always said that when the line between this world and the spirit world is thin sometimes the dead can come back. I..." She turned her head away from Mizumi. "After everything we saw tonight, I guess in the corner of my mind I thought that when we got back I'd see her somewhere in the shadows. That this shaman ability would actually do me some good. I didn't even notice I was expecting that until I was disappointed."

Suddenly she forced a laugh, breaking the quiet wistfulness of her voice. "Ha! I know it was stupid. I had some ridiculous idea that she'd have met up with Lizhen and fetched him to come tell me how to stop the Masks and...everything else. She was the one who knew about spirits and such. But that's not how dying works, and dreaming that I could somehow put this city right is what put us in all this danger. Like I said, stupid. Thanks for coming up here with me Mizumi, I-"

Ayika suddenly broke off as Mizumi put her hand down firmly on Ayika's thigh, twisting to look her straight in the face. In the yellow light that filtered up from around the edges of the roof Ayika could see her earnestness.

"Do not say that you are stupid! Ayika, you are...You are more brave, more determined than anyone I have ever met. The person responsible for all these horrible things will be caught and when that happens you will have done more than anyone! More than I ever believed was possible to..."

Mizumi found herself rapidly losing track of the motivational speech as she was leaning very close to Ayika's face. She imagined she felt the other girl's pulse beating in the thigh beneath her hand and she was suddenly very glad they had removed those stupid masks. Ayika was looking back at her with the same expression of mingled fear, excitement, and disbelief.

Mizumi mumbled, "You have done so much that I..."

Neither of them moved. The distant parties in the tiny neighborhood squares of the Bed were by now dying down to the quiet of long delayed sleep and still neither of them moved.

Then a loud crack of an explosion rang across the sky with a flash of green light. Both girls jerked in sudden surprise and Mizumi's hand slipped down off Ayika's leg, causing her to slide sideways and fall, her shoulder slamming into Ayika's stomach as her head clipped Ayika's jaw. Ayika burst out into mixed peals of hysterical laughter and pained groans as Mizumi pulled herself up growling all the curses she had ever learned in any language to cover the overwhelming embarrassment. Then they both looked up as a second resounding crack announced the blooming of another brilliant flower of light in the sky.

"Fireworks," said Ayika amid the red and yellow flashes. "But Public Safety shut down the celebrations in Kuang Harbor. Who's shooting off fireworks?"

Mizumi groaned with sudden realization. "Trade Representative Tailang. He was sponsoring a display in the Exclusion and I suppose flaunting his superiority to local rules would simply be an additional bonus to him."

She returned to her position leaning against the chimney with Ayika, slamming her back into the board there with so much frustration that it almost bounced Ayika off. This set Ayika laughing again though she tried to hold it in. After a moment of stifled giggling Mizumi found herself joining in against her own will. They sat, each leaning against the other, as they watched the fireworks explode into life high above them.

...

Ayika didn't returned Mizumi to the Exclusion until very late that night, after even the most disruptive elements of the town had started to retreat to their beds out of exhaustion. After a good deal of searching down dark waterways, she had managed to wrangle up a canal-boatman who for an exorbitant fee would transport Mizumi all of the five hundred meters from his boat moor over to the Exclusion. It was possible that Mizumi's grandfather had given them up and her father was waiting to lock her up in a tower the moment she arrived at her mansion but at least she would be home and she would be safe. Ayika watched the boat row its slow way down the canal toward the red spikes of the still illuminated foreign towers that glowed out of an orange shadowed haze. Mizumi was holding the wrapped bundle of Ayika's costume in her lap and she twisted her mouth as if she was almost about to say something but then decided against it. Then they vanished around a turning on the water channel and Ayika abruptly felt all the weariness that she had been putting off come crashing down onto her heart.

When she returned to the Bed her brother Oakas was long since asleep, his confident declarations that he would stay up till sunrise having given way as they did each year. Ayika's parents were still awake, sitting near the black iron stove as it gave off its last residue of heat and they continued some quiet conversation. They must have been waiting for Ayika for as soon as she slunk through the door her mother picked up a single candle to light before they blew out the lamp in the main room. In the corner of her mind Ayika noted that her father seemed like he wanted to say something to her, but her mother just said they should all get to bed. Her mother was looking at her with some new expression of pity and attempted understanding that in her present state Ayika didn't have the energy to focus on now. Whatever it was she was sure that she would hear about it at great length the next morning.

But she didn't. In fact she managed to race off early towards Mama Mua's without hearing more than a few words from her parents. That was strange but Ayika was willing to take her victories where she could find them. Out of the Bed, on busy streets of the Harbor Town proper, Ayika heard a great many jumbled accounts of the events of last night. She heard that the Islanders had snuck into the Inner Ring and murdered a Minister of the King. She heard that Public Safety had summoned evil spirits to burn Kuang Harbor to the ground. She even heard some versions that sounded remarkably close to the truth, at least as she understood it.

Ayika was risking getting fired by going directly to Mua's instead of to her job at Anyakya's laundry. The night after a costume holiday would have to be a very profitable day for a cleaning business. However, Ayika couldn't risk Mua doing anything foolish that might get them all arrested, or rather anything else foolish. So she would just have to put her faith in the city's collective hangover to protect her late arrival at work.

Once she reached the little square dominated by the lone tree under the looming City Wall, Ayika saw that Mua's blue and white front door was intact which was at least a good sign that Public Safety hadn't arrived to drag the woman away for attempted murder. This only made it more surprising when she pushed open the shaman's door and saw an earthbending Dai Li agent sipping a cup of tea by the fire-pit.

Ayika froze as she stared at Ma'er. "What are you doing here?"

From across the dim room Mama Mua spoke up. "This's still ma house, right? I'm afraid Ah don't see where ya get to ask that question of my guests." She was clearly still exhausted but she looked better than Ayika had left her last night. The fiery personality that had drained away after the dramatic events was back, or at least a portion of it.

Mua's objection was valid but still Ayika felt she had to mention her own issue with with the man.

"He threatened to kill me twice, you know."

"Ha! He did? I knew Ah liked him for some reason. And for the last time, come all the way in and close the door. I swear, you and your friends are the worst about that."

Ayika complied but something about the way Mua had said that caught her attention. "Friends?"

"Yeah, another one of your rich girl palls and a couple wharf-rats. Brought this lunk in last night after he was apparently a lot worse at fightin' those possessed than we were."

Ma'er growled from his seat. "There were eight of them. And according to your own account you were almost beat to death by a single one."

Mua carelessly waved her hand. "Excuses."

A voice from the other end of the room spoke up. "Um, hi Ayika."

She whipped around, "Xiaobao?"

The large young man was indeed there, sitting in the corner away from the front door and looking as battered as Mua. He gave Ayika a worried look. "You aren't hurt are you? This woman wouldn't tell me what went down with you and her but it sounded like those Masks were involved too."

"Me hurt?! You look like you fell off a building! What happened? Wait, Masks 'too'? Why were you fighting the Masks? Where's Xinfei?"

Xiaobao vaguely gestured in reassurance. "Xinfei's fine. He went out really early this morning to escort Lili Gaoli back to her place. I'd have been out of here too if this one would let me." He pointed over a Mua.

"Shut ya whining. It's for your own good ya damn fool. The whole city is up in arms. The spirit world comin' this close is messing with everyone's head, even if they don't notice it. And Ah still want to give ya another healing session so ya don't go undoin' all of it again the first time ya sneeze or wipe your rear." Mua then whipped her head back around to glare at Ma'er. "And don't let me hear any of that from you!"

Ma'er had been completely silent but somehow Mua had still heard some amusement coming from him. Actually, as Ayika looked in the scarred man's eyes she might have seen a distant twinkle.

Then she turned back to Xiaobao. "Wait, why was Xinfei even out with Lili? What were they doing?"

Xiaobao's face darkened. "They discovered something, something you and your friend Mizumi should probably hear."

...


	55. Confession

...

The following days were some of the worst Inspector Yang had ever experienced. The final toll from the Festival of Veils was greater than he could have feared. The Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression was gone, targeted by a masked assailant in the middle of his own crowded Inner Ring mansion. This attacker had displayed incredible power, blowing through the Noble's gate like a full military bending squad. At the end of that rampage along the transport line three tram station guards had also disappeared, just walked out into the night and never checked back in as far as could be told. At the same time, more of these masked people had clashed with Yang's own forces in the Kuang Harbor, attempting to burn down a foreign-owned factory. Yang had now seen their power first hand. Even with a perfectly executed surprise attack three of the assailants had managed to escape the grasp of Public Safety and had placed one of the pursuing agents on medical leave with four broken bones.

The rest of the news was no better. Yang's men had scooped up several members of the student nationalist protest group but after that night it was now clear even to his superiors that the boys were an inconsequential element. The sacrificial lambs were now a useless gesture and while that operation was underway, there were more break-ins, fires, and mass untargeted violence across his entire sector. The fires were a separate problem of their own. So many guard reports noted odd behavior in how quickly the fires spread in the Lower Ring that over fifty people had been arrested under suspicion of arson and being Fire Nation provocateurs. It quickly became obvious that none of them were firebenders, but that left the Agency searching for answers as to the strange behavior of the blazes. None of the city's other radial sectors had reported such severe increases in violence and destruction. It was only Yang's territory that had gone mad, though the neighboring sectors had noted slight increases in their own incident rates over the last few days. Something was spreading.

Yang pressed a knuckle forcibly between his eyebrows to relieve some of the stress building there. Then he jerked that hand back. He had always prided himself on personal control, but now such ticks were starting to slip through. He needed to get sleep soon. But not now. A crisis was spilling out of control and his division held responsibility.

The dreadful truth was that the Agency for Public Safety only held control of this city by virtue of the pervasive belief that they were in control. There were approximately forty thousand souls living in this radial sector alone, with a margin of documentation error that reached up to fifteen thousand. The government was outnumbered to a ridiculous extent. It was only the fiction of invincibility that allowed the maintenance of any level of order. Now those Masks were putting the lie to that old story.

And still Yang had no answers. The agency had seized several of these masks in addition to the ones Ma'er had provided them earlier but attempts to get information from spiritual experts at the Royal University had not met with success. The late Chen Lizhen was the most frequently cited and it seemed the remaining professors and administrators did not appreciate the mass arrest of the student nationalists. Those black-robed academics liked to believe that the University and all its inhabitants were under their own exclusive control, and didn't like being proven wrong. They also did not appreciate the Agency's need to clamp down on anyone spreading rumors of the spiritual possessions. All that Yang's agents had been able to gather was that the masks looked to be some sort of shamanistic artifact from the eastern Fire Islands or from the west coast of the continent in those lost territories now called the United Republic. Apparently, as cultural influence across the Sea of Fire had been extensive even before the conquest. That made precise identification of an origin of the masks difficult.

The one thing that could be agreed on was that if that region's shamanistic spirit-possession rituals were even true they were never supposed to initiate such a drastic effect. The wearer was never supposed to lose control utterly or exhibit inhuman levels of power. However, that is what was happening. It had taken a long time but Yang was finally convinced of that. If those men they'd captured at the Miohuito factory still protested their ignorance after all they had now been subjected to, then they truly did not remember. And then when they cracked and began to wildly confess, none of their accounts matched the eyewitness statements or indeed those of their fellows. As impossible as it was, those who had perpetrated the crimes were themselves ignorant of them which meant all Yang's experts in interrogation were useless. He was left with no leads and a dungeon full of criminal amnesiacs. His prime suspects were spirits.

There was a large book sitting on the inspector's desk. The author's signature marked out the name of Chen Lizhen. It was clear by now that these mask-wearing insurgents had struck at this disgraced professor first for a reason more than his political letters. However, the man's published work was unhelpful. Yang had flipped through long pages of descriptions of foreign funeral rituals with barely a single mention of the spirit world and none of possession. But the information must be out there somewhere. Someone always knew.

In the meantime he had unpleasant tasks before him. While his researchers were off attempting to wrest anything helpful from the impotent city priests, all bought and paid for positions with barely a drop of spiritual power between them, Yang had to oversee coordination with the city guard on the coming crackdown response. After last night it was vital that order be restored to his sector. Those who were spreading damaging information would be targeted first, and hopefully the fear that display provoked would spread to out through the restive city. If that didn't work than the response would be widened. A solution had to be found quickly. The alternative was to give into the rising tide of chaos.

That could never be allowed happen.

...

Ayika stood in front of the Bao house, put her foot on the wobbly wooden front step and bounced a few times on it. The racket it made had been her signal to the brothers for years. Of course even she was a little taller than she'd been at nine and one of these days that half rotten plank was going to give way in a crack. She'd be lucky to to not knock out all her teeth but she did it anyway. Tradition was important.

"Oy, hold it! Xiaobao's out!" Xinfei shouted from within. A second later, that familiar rhythm must have finally clicked because he threw open the front door.

"Ayika?"

His mother's soft and distant voice drifted out from within. "Ayika dear, it's lovely of you to come by."

"Hey, Mrs Bao," Ayika stepped forward, leaning on Xinfei a bit to push him out of the way so she could be at least half inside the one room apartment. "You doing well? You look like you've put on weight."

"Oh, you're so kind." Xinfei's mother was alway nice and friendly, however she did not look well. She was still in bed even hours into the day, sitting on her futon all propped up in the corner with a thin blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Ayika wasn't sure, but she thought that those cheekbones might be sticking out even more these days.

Then she saw two fairly large wooden boxes stacked against the opposite wall. The stamped writing read " _Premium Whitening Powder. Jingdu._ " There was a stamped image of lips beneath it.

"Um, Xinfei? Why do you have two crates of ladies' face makeup in your place?"

He waved that question off. "Eh, forget it. Just business, not interesting."

She begged to differ. "Kinda feel like it is? Got a new hobby I should know about?"

Xinfei just grunted and made to move her a bit further out the door. "What are you doing here, Ayika?

"You ass, I wanted to make sure you were ok. After everything that happened on the festival, and then I didn't see you all yesterday. What's up with that?" She kept her voice tight and a little quiet when she referenced what had happened with the masks and spirits. No one wanted to inflict that kind of thing on Mrs Bao, she worried enough when her sons weren't actually in mortal danger. A darker part of Ayika also added that it was not as if Mai Bao would actually be of any use even in the simplest problem.

Xinfei just shook his head as he deflected Ayika, also speaking quietly. "Nah, I'm good. Maolin's the one who got hit, but your friend Mua said he's fine. What about you? You're the one who actually went up against those things and this is the first we've talked. How was I supposed to know if you were ok?"

"By coming to see me yesterday, idiot!"

"Like you came to see me?"

"Great, so we're both idiots!"

At this, Xinfei couldn't keep a straight face and burst out with a snort of laughter. Ayika felt her own brief anger melting away and joined in with a flash of a grin. She leaned back against the apartment wall and did a little comedic fake glowering. Then she noticed Xinfei kept glancing over at her.

She narrowed her eyebrows, "What are you looking at?"

He waved like it was nothing, but he actually sounded a bit disappointed. "Oh, no. I just knew you're working the laundry today and..."

"And? And you thought I'd be wearing that tight counter-girl getup here? Fat chance. Even if Anyakya let those things off premises, it'd still be only in your dreams, perv." She playfully punched out at him. Xinfei dodged easily and she said, "Hey, know what? If I get it out I'll let you wear it as much as you want. That make you happy eh? Go with your new hobby?" She fluttered her hand like a fan and smacked her lips in a kissing noise. Then her own recent memories surged to the surface again and she suddenly felt nearly terrified about these jokes she'd been making for years. Fear roiled in her stomach as she remembered Mizumi on the rooftop under the fireworks and she was once again filled with terrible uncertainty.

But Xinfei just rolled his eyes at her, not noticing any of this turmoil. "Shut up."

After a brief moment of silence, Ayika said, "So, makeup huh? New product?" Any topic of conversation was better than the terrible uncertainty that had been washing over her in waves for the last two days.

Xinfei sat down on the lip of the little wooden overhang that served them as a front porch. Ayika joined him. If you sat on the downhill side of the sloped path then there was enough space to hang your legs. She was fine with listening to Xinfei begin to excitedly run through his newest business plans. This one actually sounded fairly good, even if Lili Gaoli was involved to an unnerving degree. But Ayika had other worries festering in her mind and as Xinfei's descriptions eventually began to run out of steam she could at last no longer contain them. Things needed to be said.

"Xinfei, I know you like me."

His face instantly flushed burning red. "Uh, of course I like you, we're-"

"Shut up for a minute. Don't treat me like an idiot." Ayika breathed in and out. "I mean, I've known for years. I guess. But I just...I just... if I ignored it, then somehow the fact that I didn't feel like I'm supposed to...It wouldn't matter yet." She wasn't thinking about what she was saying anymore. Each word just burst up from somewhere within her, like building pressure forming bubbles of release.

She couldn't look at him anymore. Her eyes were locked forward, staring blindly at the house across the path until it faded into an unfocused blur. "I'm afraid...I'm just afraid there's something broken in me. And I don't want to lose you somehow. You're my best friend."

"What about Maolin?"

"Yeah he's my friend but he's, you know, another brother. I've got enough of those. But you're my best friend. You always have been." Her throat hurt. "And these days I really need that. Damn it, I really, _really need that."_

Then there was just a long moment of silence. Ayika's teeth were clenched in painful tension and she refused to raise a hand to brush at the moisture in her eyes. She just sat there willing that it would somehow be reabsorbed.

The pause stretched on terribly. Then Xinfei finally spoke and Ayika hadn't realized how much she'd feared he would not.

He was hesitant and a little horse, but he was smiling too, even if it didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're my best friend too. Come on, like that would ever change. Who else would put up with me? And as for...Just, you know, forget about it. We're all stupid. I mean, I am and I certainly know you are."

"Jerk."

"You too, lady," he joked and then he leaned back a bit as he looked up at the sky. "I guess I just know nothing's ever for one person to decide. We're all just doing our own thing. You've got yours, and it's harder than a lot of people's, but I know there's other people out there doing the same, and hell, if they can make anything out of that then you certainly can. I mean, damn it, you're Ayika. You against the world and I know who to back."

Her eyes stung a lot more now. Her jaw hurt as clenched muscles mixed with a smile. "Thanks. You're a great person, you know, when you bother trying at it."

Xinfei snorted back and Ayika gave a chuckle. She said, "Ha, and you know about all this, I'm actually pretty side sure I'm with your brother here. I think...I think I can deal with being like Maolin."

"Wait, what about Maolin? What's he like? He's not a shaman. Is he? Wait, what are you talking about?"

Ayika suddenly burst out laughing at Xinfei's confusion. She couldn't help it. All her stress came pouring out as she gasping for air between glancing at Xinfei's perplexed and frustrated face. Then she threw her arms around him in a hug that was half for physical support and half for comfort. Eventually he just gave up trying to understand and he playfully shoved her back while rolling his eyes. Ayika wiped tears away as her stomach hurt from the spasms of hilarity.

And then she thought that just maybe she could do this.

...

Trade Representative Amantza Tailang was the mysterious sponsor behind the Masks.

As Mizumi paced her third floor apartments in the family mansion she could barely believe it but from Lili's story she had little option. She couldn't imagine that the Earth Kingdom girl would be willing to both completely invent such a damaging lie and convince Ayika's friend Xinfei to go along with it. No, they had really seen it with their own eyes. Not only was Tailang organizing the nationalists against his own people but he'd also supplied the mask artifacts and so was responsible for the powerful spirit possessions who had rampaged across the city. Well, this at least explained why that Mask had targeted Erliao two days ago. The minister had been one of Tailang's most vocal opponents.

Mizumi's head hurt from stress and lack of sleep. After much cajoling, her Kingdoms citizen butler Fong had reluctantly told her that the rumors in the town said that Sub-Minister Erliao was indeed gone. Public Safety and the City Guard were up in arms, and striking out against the local population at every chance to show that they were still in charge even after the Masks displays. Two of their local maids hadn't come in today after an entire Lower Ring neighborhood had gotten swept up in mass arrests. Out in Kuang Harbor it was now common to see beaten men huddled in alley mouths nursing their wounds received in equal likelihood from natives of the opposite political faction or from the badged agents of their own government. The other people on the streets were afraid to help them for being seen to take a side. Mizumi could only fret from within the Exclusion and imagine what Ayika might be doing in the middle of all this. And she knew that her own countryman was behind all of it.

Her fingernails bit into the palm of her hand as all her muscles tensed up in anger. Large swaths of the city were being turned against her race while inhuman powers beyond all their understanding were rearing their heads. And Tailang was responsible. Why? As some sort of political power game as a play for the ambassadorship after Aza Naruhama's death? That was the reason Teacher Lizhen had to die? Because he knew something about it and was going to tell Mizumi's father? It was all preposterous, obscene, and undoubtably true.

But no, as terrible as those crimes were, they were no longer the sole important matter. Mizumi had seen Ayika speak to two powerful spirits that night, and both those beings had emphasized the harm that was being done to the border between worlds. If the Nation was behind that, then it was her honor-bound duty to repair it. Ghosts were gathering as the rituals of death were disrupted and with them powerful spirits, eager to cross over to the human world. But there had to be a way to fix that.

Mizumi then felt a measure of furious resolve rise beneath the worry and fear. She'd decided on a course of action. She might not have the spiritual talent that Ayika did but she still knew how to get answers in other ways. Perhaps Fire Sage Huitzlan's proclivity for long-windedness would do her service for once. Disruptions among the spirits had to harm his people as much as it would the Kingdoms natives. The Sage would have some idea if he found out what Tailang was up to. He had to. There had to be someone who could be in control.

However, if her father and grandfather were any example then most of the other residents of the Exclusion didn't even believe in the rumored news of spirits and masks. Her father was too concerned with recovering from the the fire at his factory. He was now pulling out every political stop and putting every bit of effort towards securing permits for a full scale demonstration of his train engine on the city tram tracks, even if that meant he had to lift the locomotive up there on his back. He and Grandfather didn't pay any mind to what they deemed "native superstition". And they were trusting in Tailang's help to deal with the King of Kings.

Mizumi snuck out of the mansion without incident, only being seen by a single servant who agreed to not volunteer notice of her exit to her father. He'd been furious with her late arrival back home after the festival but luckily Mizumi had managed to convince him that she'd only been within the bounds of the Exclusion at a party that had gone on longer than expected. And even if she was being punished, surely a trip a few streets down to the temple was within any definition of acceptable behavior. Still, two trips in four days would double the number of visits she'd made in the past year. Her father would rightly note this newfound piety as suspicious, but Mizumi would cross that bridge when she came to it.

The energy on the Exclusion's narrow streets was different today. People here had at least heard some version of what happened during the festival and it unnerved them. Erliao was now common knowledge, and the attack on the Miohuito factory was seen as the beginning of a larger retaliation. There was no talk of the Masks having powers, only some laughter about superstitious Earth Kingdom natives that drew unnoticed dark looks from those same natives who filled every menial job here. The people of the Fire Nation were so comfortable in their knowledge of the world, they just wearily sighed at how much they still had to educate the people of this country. At least the Fire Sage wouldn't be as likely to dismiss possession out of hand. Spirits were his field after all.

As Mizumi approached the towering red and gold pagoda of the temple complex she felt the strength of her burning anger wane a bit. The two hulking black iron brasiers still had their fires stoked on each side of the temple entrance. That dark portal looked unsettlingly empty in contrast to the last deification ceremony she'd attended. But a thought of the monstrous howling of that possessed Mask mixed with the memory of Tailang's smirking face reignited her righteous fury and she confidently stormed up the temple steps.

Mizumi had come here prepared to begin the first fight of a long battle through endless hurtles of bureaucracy that would lie between her and the information she sought. Instead she was met with an almost disorienting lack of resistance. It seemed this day's ceremonies for Naruhama hadn't started yet and the main temple room only held two old women praying to the front fire pedestal. However, as soon as Mizumi entered those shadowed halls a junior priest noticed appeared at her side to take question with a helpful nod. A few scarce moments later Mizumi was being led to the upper levels where Fire Sage Huitzlan kept his offices.

As they made their way through corridors lined with dark tropical wood, imported at great expense from the Nation, Mizumi narrowed her eyes at some of the activity on this level. It looked like the red robed junior priests were hanging up strips of spirit charm paper on the walls. Now that wasn't unusual in a temple, even Mizumi knew that the influence of the spirit world waxed and waned in mysterious ways under the best of conditions and temples were supposed to be nexuses for their influence, but this was day _after_ a major spirit holiday. They should be taking down extras not putting more up. That is, they should if they shared the mainstream Exclusion dismissal of the rumors of a building spiritual crisis. Mizumi had heard of no such announcement from this temple that had always been eager to offer pronouncements on every other topic. That was certainly interesting.

After only a few moments of waiting in an exterior antechamber, Mizumi was welcomed into the office of Fire Sage Huitzlan. An acolyte or clerical worker passed her as she went through the doorway. The small man in a dark suit had an unreadable guarded expression as he slid by with the barest flick of his eyes to take in her face before he departed. Inside, behind the large desk at the end of the room, Huitzlan's expression was less guarded.

The Fire Sage's face was lined and weathered over his pointed grey beard. He was tired and worried, but at the same time curiously cheerful. At the moment he was not wearing the full finery of his office and instead was dressed only in a simple dark robe of a red so deep it was almost black. With it on he blended into the expensive red leather of the chair-back behind him. The room itself was sparsely furnished save the desk's chairs and a narrow staircase leading up the back wall.

"Yes?" Huitzlan said. Then recognition flitted across his brow. "Ah, the daughter of Tetzamatl Miohuito." He gestured to a rather hard and uncomfortable looking chair of polished wood in front of his desk. "Yes, come in my dear. What is it you wished to talk about?"

Mizumi gingerly lowered herself into the offered seat. "First of all, I am sorry to bother you."

"Not at all. Of all the forces bothering me at the moment you are a welcome distraction." He then grumbled to himself, "If I have to listen to Tailang make commands of my temple for much longer he will learn quickly that he is the one who..." He caught himself and returned his attention to Mizumi. "I am sorry. As one gets older it becomes easier to see the grand picture but sometimes you lose track of the people sitting in front of you. What is troubling you, my child?"

"It is actually sort of about Representative Tailang."

Huitzlan raised his eyebrow suspiciously as Mizumi backpedaled. She had to be careful about what might get back to the Trade Representative.

"Er, no, I mean about his sort of politics as a whole. And about the spirit world."

Now Huitzlan was on the hook. Where as before he'd been regarding Mizumi with dignified politeness, now he was studying her intently. There was suspicion in his eyes.

But in the absence of any interruption she continued, "I have heard people talk about the native protests against our people, particularly with the attack on my father's factory. The thing is, when I talk to the native servants and vendors they all say that these disruptive forces are using power from the spirit world. Representative Tailang and the rest of the Trade Mission have publicly denied this but from what I heard the Earth Kingdom government has not said the same. They have just said nothing. And well, it is terrible to say of our Fire Lord's chosen official but it is possible Representative Tailang does not know as much about spirits as he pretends. I am afraid that something may be happening."

Mizumi resisted the urge to smile triumphantly as Huitzlan leaned forward. The sage had taken the bait. "He certainly does not! However, of course I would not be surprised if the native officials knew even less. "Of course there is spiritual trouble. Ba Sing Se has long since forgotten to truly honor their gods. In the Nation our guardian spirits are honored above all else as an integrated part of our royal government, and us sages as their voice. Here priesthood is a position bought and paid for. Their temples are neglected or abandoned. Out on the streets the common folk honor our imports and petty fashions more than they honor their own gods. Is it really any surprise that hungry ghosts now linger on the edge of the veil?"

"Hungry ghosts?" Mizumi felt her blood pumping harder. Mua had said the same. Something even worse was coming and she needed to learn something that could stop it. She had to take a chance. "You said that Representative Tailang has been taking things from the temple. Only I thought you and the Representative...did not exactly see eye to eye." Huitzlan's expression grew dark. This now went beyond having an audience for him to vent too. The implication of theft was an important political accusation. But Mizumi had not gotten this far in her life by being cautious. " I have heard other things too. Things that my native sources are saying. There are those who have connected the representative with...a certain artifact. Something of spiritual power." She took a breath. "Masks."

Huitzlan's eyes shot to his office door and returned in a brief instant. It was an involuntary gesture but Mizumi had seen it clearly. A bolt of lightning had just landed in the Fire Sage's heart, and now he was afraid. Mizumi leaned back slightly in her chair as she tried to keep her expression neutral and mildly curious. She'd made note of Ayika's techniques to effortlessly walk blindly through these situations of unequal power. It was enough now to leave Huitzlan in silence.

Sure enough he elected to speak first. "I do not know what you are talking about." He snapped, hiding fear under anger. "The Ambassador's funeral mask was burned on schedule, of course. Who told you otherwise?"

Mizumi kept her face perfectly still even as she felt poleaxed with confusion. Ambassador Naruhama? What? She had certainly gotten a reaction, but she now was completely lost as to what the sage was talking about. But she had to continue anyway. How was the dead ambassador involved in this? She pressed on anyway, hoping to glean some clue even as she felt like she was suddenly walking a tightrope over an infinite void.

"Er, certain people have been investigating the sudden appearance of spirit masks for months. And then a particular example got out of the hands of those who had been using them. It was brought to a teacher at a native school I attend. Chen Lizhen he was called."

Huitzlan inhaled sharply. "Naruhama's ghost mask was in the hands of Chen Lizhen?! But...! Oh no, of course. I heard of his death. I forgot that for a moment. So tragically pointless." He narrowed is eyes as he looked at Mizumi. "You know a lot more than a girl your age should. More than anyone should. There are dangerous powers at work around us." He looked afraid now, nervous of some outside force coming to punish the next thing he said.

"Powers which attacked and set fire to my father's business. Powers who are assaulting his business partners. As his heir I have a great deal of personal stake, and when my father is so consumed with these worries, it falls to his family to seek any aid that may appear. To do any less would be dishonorable. Justice must find the perpetrators, before they can do more damage."

Huitzlan snorted faintly in derision, but a twinkle in his eyes indicated that he was not altogether unmoved by this speech. His fear had retreated a small degree. Indeed, he seemed to make his mind up about something. He gave a long sigh, though Mizumi thought that it might be more artifice than genuine reluctance.

"I must say, after everything I have suffered, speaking the truth aloud is now a relief. You and your family are correct, Amantza Tailang has been abusing the power of his office towards this temple. I regret now that some time ago I made a careless lecture to him about some shaman masks of the Nation's Eastern Islands. I mentioned my private academic collection here at the temple and before long I noticed that artifacts were being stolen. I was infuriated of course but I was comforted in the thought that Ambassador Naruhama would dispense justice. But then the Ambassador tragically died and I suppose that put the theft out of my mind. Really, it seemed a pointlessly petty crime committed by a petulant child. Those shaman artifacts are very weak under normal circumstances. They should not have been dangerous."

Huitzlan took a deep breath as if arranging thoughts in his mind. There was a small twitch at one corner of his wrinkled mouth. "But then the Ambassador's death mask was stolen in the night, before it could be burned. Representative Tailang must have listened to my lectures more than I thought."

Suddenly the pieces of knowledge Mizumi had absorbed from Ayika and Mama Mua began to click together. She remembered Ayika speaking of linked jade masks and clay disks over eyes. Improper funeral rituals allowed ghosts to linger in this world and the spirit world instead of rejoining the soul in reincarnation. Ghosts could gain power from offerings made to the dead. The entire Exclusion had been making prayers and offerings to raise the soul of Aza Naruhama to godhood. All while his ghost mask remained in this world, like an anchor.

"Oh, no. The ghost..."

Huitzlan's faint eyebrows arched up. He was surprised. "You received a good religious education in the Nation. Your family is from Kasai Island? It is not important. Yes, you have seized on it. Naruhama's mask remains unburnt. As soon as I discovered this I wanted to stop the deification ritual but Tailang delivered the most terrible threats against me and to my shame I gave in. I continued the rituals. The resulting weakening of the veil between worl has caused the stolen shaman masks to gain incredible power. I wanted to say something but until today I have had no definitive proof of Representative Tailang's involvement, only the man's vague gloating. I was alone in my suspicions. If I moved against him without a weapon I would simply be seized and my underlings would carry on with the rituals. Yet I believe your family must have something else, some hope, or you would not have spoken so boldly in accusing the Trade Representative. Help me take him down."

Mizumi leaned back slightly, pushed by the intensity of Sage Huitzlan's stare. "Yes. I do. Er...that is, I know of natives, erm, city citizens who have witnessed Representative Tailang inciting criminal acts. I just didn't know-"

The Fire Sage interrupted, his voice losing what little softness it had possessed as he now considered that he did not need to guide her to the conclusion any more. "Unfortunately, the Ambassador's death also means that Representative Tailang is of supreme political power in this enclave. The Fire Lord will soon appoint a replacement ambassador but it will take months for them to arrive. We do not have that kind of time and I cannot safely move to stop the ritual while Tailang remains." Here he paused. "Though if the native government were to act...But of course your father has more experience there."

The old man trailed off suggestively. For one whose attitude towards the native residents of this city was barely above distain, the thought of putting even a villainous a Fire Nation citizen under their control had to be distasteful. But he was right, in the absence of an ambassador there was no authority of the Nation in the Exclusion above the office of the Trade Representative. It would be risky to involve the Ba Sing Se government in seizing a Fire Nation citizen, but if Huitzlan was right about what Tailang had done then it was a risk worth taking. The spiritual chaos had to be stopped.

Mizumi stood up, "I think you are right. I will...tell my father what you suggest." If the old man wanted to think that she was sent here by her father then she could allow him to continue that misconception.

Fire Sage Huitzlan stood up as well. His expression was guardedly triumphant. At least once Tailang was in chains, Huitzlan would be able to appeal for calm in the Nation's response. After that he could score whatever promotion or favor from the Fire Lord he wanted.

However, as she turned to exit the office, Mizumi noticed one last thing. The inside of Huitzlan's door was plastered with a thick coat of spirit repelling paper charms. The man must have been more afraid than his confidence suggested. He feared retaliation from more than just Tailang's political authority. He feared an entire other world. Mizumi just hoped his fears would not come to pass.

...


	56. Recruitment

...

Out in the city the streets were erupting into fights as the increasingly orange sun dipped lower in the sky. Chonglong watched them from his hiding place. The Masks and their power were now open knowledge. Even if the precise details of what had happened weren't clear, everyone knew that the nationalist sons of the city had gained the ability to wield the strength of the land's guardian spirits and stand up to the corruption plaguing their home. However, there were still many fools who responded to what should be great news with terror and suspicion. Loyal nationalists and the so-called modernists clashed at every street-corner and the government laid down arbitrary force against both sides.

Chonglong should have been happier. The tall and broad university student had finally ascended to the top ranks of the movement to protect his city. He was one of the Initiated now, with his own spirit mask in a cloth bag at his side. It didn't matter that Zhangyi and Jiang had balked at the last moment, after they picked up the masks and money the man at the restaurant had promised them. They'd been afraid of being arrested like the rest of their group. They were cowards. They would regret passing down this opportunity. Now Chonglong sat alone in a small bare room as shafts of reddening light slowly sliced up the shadowed wall.

In defiance of Zhangyi's pathetic pleas, Chonglong had gone off to with his Initiated contact this afternoon, bringing with him the supply of masks that the highest leadership had gifted him. In a corner of his mind he wasn't willing to admit, Chonglong was glad to hand over those masks. As long as he had held them he'd felt like he was being watched, like the Public Safety Agents who'd arrested Changping, Tianzi, and the rest of the Student Committee for Nationalist Action were still lurking in every shadow and behind every corner. He only wished that his now fellow Initiated had showed the least bit of concern for their captured allies.

There had been more of the Initiated present at the covert meeting than Chonglong had expected. Before, the organization's leadership had been reluctant to meet in numbers during daylight hours but now even the masters of spiritual masks were seeking safety in groups. Or perhaps they were simply too powerful to be threatened anymore. In addition to Chonglong's normal contact there were two twitchy looking fellows dressed in Middle Ring fashions and one other man who, though dressed in someone else's ill-fitting clothes, spoke with an accent that revealed him as a noble of the Inner Ring. This noble was clearly one of the commanding Initiated and he shared none of his fellows' nervousness. Chonglong tried to mimic that man and scoff at the constant news of clashes between factions in the street and mass arrests by the guards, but he couldn't quite close his ears to what the other two Initiated were nervously whispering.

Those men muttered about waking up in the Lower Ring, not able to remember what they'd done last night. They spoke of the power of the masks taking control during their search, until they couldn't remember who they were searching for and only felt drawn onward towards some mysterious destination deep in the warren-streets of the Lower Ring. What they did not want to mention was something Chonglong had already heard. Parts of the Lower Ring looked like a war-zone today. Last night buildings had been smashed, homes invaded, and fires had spread so quickly that the only explanation was enemy action from the Fire Nation, no matter how much the city government denied it. It had to be enemies who'd done all that; the alternative was too unsettling. No, these men didn't know what they were talking about; it had to be the Fire Nation.

The ragged noble had no such doubts. In a loud voice that had made the other Initiated flinch and glance around, he proclaimed that the Fire Nation had now provoked escalation. He said that the foreigners had sent assassins to the Inner Ring, and they were likely behind the arsons across this sector of the city. Chonglong had heard the rumors about the death of Sub-Minister Erliao and was grateful to hear this noble debunk the rumors that the attacker had worn a spirit mask. In fact the noble laughed at the whole thing. Chonglong tried not to be unnerved at how long that laughter lasted. The leading Initiated then proclaimed they would hand out all the new masks Chonglong had obtained and they would raise a godly army against those who were trying to corrupt the soul of their nation. Chonglong thumped his fist on the table and cheered along, trying to ignore the strange growling inflection that sometimes crept into the man's words seemingly without him noticing.

But that had been hours ago. Chonglong had been thanked, given his orders, and left to wait for sunset while the presence of his new mask in its cloth bag slowly gnawed at his awareness. The other Initiated had split off to spread the word across the rings. All the patriots of the city would see they didn't have to fear the Fire Nation or their puppets any more. The gods of the city were on their side. The Initiated were doing what was right. Chonglong had to believe they were doing what was right.

The last slivers of red light vanished as the sun dipped below shadow of the city wall, leaving Chonglong in a dark and empty room. He tried to shut off the thoughts that seemed to emanate from that satchel bag in the corner. The whispers of creaking wood echoed with a faintness beyond hearing, swaying trunks in an unseen gale from some imagined forest hiding behind the air. Zhangyi and Jiang were not going to return. They'd made their choice. He was on his own, and he'd gone too far to back down now.

It was time. Chonglong lifted up the mask he'd been given, dark brown and shining with streaks of painted red across its knotted surface. Then he pressed it to his face and remembered no more but the laughter of an inhuman mind.

...

It was late morning and Lili paced back and forth in front of her writing desk attempting to burn off some nervous energy. There had been more news of scattered violence across the city last night and she felt very isolated even here in her family home. Mizumi was nearly confined to the Exclusion, Ayika stood little chance of getting through the ring gates, and despite the temporary employee passport Lili had given him Xinfei still hadn't been back to visit his investor in days. Then there was a knock on the frame of the open door.

"Yes? Come in."

Her butler Mengre entered. "Excuse me, mistress, but there is a young man at the door for you. He says his name is Li and he has a...friend with him. He says he was speaking with you during the festival last night and would like to offer a brief apology."

Li? Who was Li? Could that be Xinfei with a fake name? But Mengre had said the visitor was at the front door, not the back entrance. Lili didn't know why Xinfei would be coming through the main gates or who was with him. It couldn't be Mizumi as Mengre would have mentioned her first. It could be Ayika or Xinfei's brother but Mengre would have clarified if this friend was female so the tribal girl could be ruled out. And what could Xinfei be apologizing for? Lili had managed to get back to her house that night without her long absence being noticed. Of course, with all the excitement her father had experienced at Erliao's party she could just have easily been arriving home right now and she probably would have still gotten away with it.

Then Lili realized that she had been silent for several seconds of inner monologue while Mengre watched impassively. She jerked slightly as her mind snapped back into the conversation. "Oh, yes. Well, see them into the parlor and I'll be down to greet them in just a moment."

Mengre nodded. Then just as he was turning to leave he looked back as if he had just remembered something. "Oh, there is also a delivery at the back. That, erm, personal shopper you picked up in the Kuang Harbor at Miss Miohuito's suggestion. I can send him away until your callers have left."

"What?" Xinfei was at the back? Then who was...? Lili collected herself. "No! Um, no, just have him wait below stairs for a moment and I will...um, just have him wait for a moment." What was going on?

She hurried down the staircase from the woman's wing. Ever since her sisters had gotten married this half of the house had felt empty but right now she was glad there was no one around to ask her why she was moving about in such a rush. Her mother was still in her apartments recovering from the burden of entertaining some more guests last night. That was the agreed upon way to refer to the lady of the house nursing a hangover that would have felled a sizable percentage of an army regiment. It came up frequently.

Downstairs, Lili carefully peaked into the front parlor and then quickly jumped back, almost slamming her hip against the corner of an ornamental table as she did so. Zhangyi and Jiang were in her house. They weren't wearing the black and white student robes that she'd seen them in before but it was unmistakably them. Lili's heart pounded in her chest. They'd found her. That meant the Masks had found her. But how? She'd given them a false name and had been wearing a disguising costume the entire time they had seen her. Even if they had seen her face, there were over fifteen million people living in this city. How could they know who she was?

Xinfei. The university boys had known him and he was currently at servant's entrance. Zhangyi and Jiang must have followed him here and now she'd let into her house. The very house they had led a mob against a few weeks ago. She remembered broken lampposts and screeching madmen. She remembered the flames licking out of the window of the Miohuito train-yard factory behind earthbenders fighting with terrifying Masks who boiled with the energy of spirit possession. Now they were here.

Lili's chest pumped in and out as she tried to breath through her nose and stop herself from panting. Allies, she needed allies.

Quickly, she turned around and rushed to the back of the house, her silk slippers making barely a whisper on the polished stone floor. The door to the servant's staircase popped open to her familiar hand and she rushed down the steps to the lower floor. The below-stairs had its own version of ground level due to the varying elevation of the Fifth Hill and it was at that street-side entrance that Xinfei was waiting.

A maid was humming a tune and absently knocked two shoes together while carrying them down the narrow downstairs hallway. When she saw the young lady of the house racing down the corridor the poor maid nearly dropped them in surprise.

"My Lady! I didn't...I was just..."

Lili forced herself to smile gently. "Don't worry, Qingling. I'm the one who snuck on down here and interfered. I just wanted to say something very quickly to the shopper boy before I forgot. He is in there?"

Qingling nodded quickly as Lili pointed and darted off. The maid then gave a brief relieved sigh and hurried off in the opposite direction.

Xinfei was sitting on a low bench beside the back door. When he heard Lili enter he looked up. "Lili? Oh, good. Um, I was just coming to make sure you were all good and-"

"No time!" Lili hissed in barely contained panic. "Those nationalist boys, Zhangyi and his friend are here! In my front room!"

Xinfei's eyes went wide. "What? How did...Damn! They must have followed me. Damn it, damn it! I wasn't careful enough! I should have known something like this would-"

His growling self flagellation was interrupted by Lili grabbing hold of his arm and tugging him out of the room towards the servant's stairs. As they moved Lili whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "They never saw me without my costume and mask. There's still a possibility that all this is just a vague suspicion. I may be able to convince them that you're simply my employee who was acting on his own, and we have no political connection. After all my father is one of the most prominent reformers, why would his daughter be at a meeting of conservative vandals? But if they're here to try something you'll be able to get away and call the rest of the house to help. I need someone to watch my back. Someone who knows what's really happening."

Lili left Xinfei hiding in the hallway just outside the sitting room as she gathered her poise, straightened her dress, and then walked gracefully into where the enemy was waiting. Jiang and Zhangyi both hopped from their seats to stand in front of the carved window shutters as she entered. Lili smiled.

"Ah, my apologies. I have kept you waiting for quite a while. What can I do for you two fine men? I'm afraid I don't remember where I made your acquaintance. Were you here at our party? Ha, the Festival of Veils is awfully confusing that way! Everyone's in disguise and you can never be certain who you are talking to." Even if they had followed Xinfei here Lili was not about to give them final conformation that she was in fact the Yushin Song who they'd met that night. Any little bit of uncertainty could be the factor that saved her family.

Zhangyi, parted his lips as if he were about to speak but then halted and let his more portly fellow take the lead. Jiang looked nervous as his eyes darted around the room.

"Are any of your servants is a position to hear us in here?"

Lili took a step back before she could help herself. She didn't let her polite composure crack but her heart was again thudding in her veins. Her voice was grew firm. "I can assure you that if I were to call out someone would come running very quickly. Now, please I am afraid I have not had the pleasure of proper introduction mister...Li was it?"

"Yes, Jiang Li. And that really is my name, Miss...Song."

Lili felt her cheeks blanch a bit as Zhangyi let out one faint snort of bitter laughter, calling out her fake name. She quickly found her voice, abandoning any pretense of pleasant confusion in favor of directness and force.

"How did you find me?"

"A little hypocritical, that question?" Zhangyi added, raising an eyebrow surely at the memory of him asking her the exact same thing last during the festival.

Jiang on the other hand actually started to blush a bit in embarrassment as he answered her. "Even with that costume you wore, I recognized you. From a party about four years ago or so. My father knows yours through some distant family connection or something and I came over here for an informal get-together your father was holding. You were probably around twelve." He saw that there was no recognition flickering in Lili's face. He looked down. "I'm not really surprised you don't remember me. I was just some chubby teenager you only saw once."

"You only saw me once."

"Yeah, well..." Jiang trailed off in a way which made the corner of Zhangyi's mouth tick up.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat from the entrance to the parlor. Zhangyi and Jiang started with sudden anxiety of being found out. However, Lili knew what that sound was. Xinfei must have gotten impatient.

"Don't worry about that. I set someone to watch the door and make sure no unwelcome ears come near." She neglected to mention that if Mengre or anyone else came back and Xinfei was standing there he'd probably be flung out of the house before he could do much of anything. However, her half truth did have the desired effect of shifting the balance of power back in her favor. The two men were reminded that this was her house and she was the one in the position of authority. They looked nervous and so Lili glared at them. "So how about you tell me why you tracked me down, to my family's home, and showed up unannounced? And while you're explaining, why shouldn't I have you seized and held for the guards as members of an illicit organization? Hmm?"

The two men looked at each other as if they were not entirely confident themselves why they had come. Eventually, Zhangyi cleared his throat and settled into darkly serious voice.

"Public Safety raided the our meeting on the festival night right after we left. I had someone go by to talk to the madam and she said you and your non-citizen friend left just before they came." The accusation was clear. They thought she'd ratted them out.

Of course, Lili had learned about the raid at the same time Zhangyi had but she wasn't going to admit that she and Xinfei followed them to that restaurant. "And you think I'm the informant behind those arrests. All right," and here she turned away from them as if looking out the window. "...then why come here? If I was informing to Public Safety do you really think I'd be unprepared here? This would be such an easy trap to spring on you."

Zhangyi narrowed his eyes but Jiang just turned around and looked through an open doorway that lead to another small sitting room. He seemed very tired. "They say Sub-Minister of Culture and Worthy Expression Chao Erlaio was taken that night, probably murdered."

Lili couldn't help letting out a quiet huff of disbelief at their nerve. Mizumi's waterbender friend had said just whose allies had been behind that. "Apparently someone thought that he would be more useful dead than alive. I heard what that killer was wearing on his face."

"No!" Zhangyi's hand was clenched into a fist as Lili jumped. On his face was the pained expression of an ardent believer finding that his cause had failed him. "No, that makes no sense! Erliao was one of the most vocal nationalist ministers he had. With him dead... he won't be a martyr, the other ministers will just slink back into their holes out of fear of any conflict with the Fire Nation. No, the Initiated couldn't have done that. That would just be insanity!"

Was this doubt that Lili heard in his voice? She knew now that Tailang and his Fire Nation influence was behind all this, but they weren't ready to hear that yet. She glanced over at Jiang. At least, Zhangyi was not ready to hear it. But still, they had come here for a reason. They were looking for a way out.

"And yet you came over here to speak to me. I'm sure you also heard about those..." She paused over choosing the word for the Masks. "...Initiated fighting in Kuang Harbor. They started fires and killed people with their bare hands. Not Fire Nation or government agents. They killed ordinary people trying to save their neighborhoods. And there are stories of more masked men smashing through the Lower Ring, destroying places that have nothing to do with foreign trade."

Jiang sighed. "When I heard the rumors about how Professor Lizhen died I tried to think that it was just gossip. Then I tried to think that it was an accident. But things have gotten out of hand. I think something is messing with the Initiated's heads. Something about the power of those masks." He looked at Lili. "And you knew that, don't you? That's why you came to find us, why you had that harbor guy following us. I think you've been investigating."

They wanted her to know something. They'd found themselves trapped down a dark path of their own making. They wanted there to be another faction they could turn to, and Lili's family might offer that. Their university friends had been arrested by Public Safety and their leaders had proved themselves violent and unreliable. These young men were desperate for any sign of a way out.

Zhangyi wasn't looking at her as he spoke to a blank wall. "Chonglong went missing yesterday."

Ah, there it was; the last straw. Jiang took a single step forward and the angled morning sun illuminated dancing dust particles in the space he departed. "I don't think he's the only one. Things are getting bad and no one seems to be in control anymore. Something's going on and we need to know what it is. We need to..." He took a breath and then met Lili's eyes. "What have you found?"

Lili steeled herself and spoke with as much casual force of persona as she could summon up. "All right then, perhaps I will help you. I've been looking for your leader. The one who commands the Masks."

" _Hrmph_. I'd like to know that too. Those 'Masks' abandoned us. Abandoned our friends! We met with our contact to tell them about Public Safety's raid but all that guy cared about was that we got more..." Jiang caught himself. "...supplies. It's been months since they started only being concerned with petty power struggles within the organization. We started the Student Nationalist Committee to protect the people, why are we putting people in danger? Something's happened to Chonglong, he wouldn't just drop out of touch!"

Off to the side, Zhangyi ground his teeth. "None of it makes any sense!"

Lili felt a metaphorical catch in the tension of the air. "Does it?" This was her chance. This was a chance to change something. But she needed help. She turned around. "Xinfei, come in here."

Both university students snapped their heads around as Xinfei entered the room but then relaxed slightly as they dismissed him just as quickly. Zhanyi muttered to himself, "And of course."

Xinfei opened his mouth to say something but Lili quickly shot him a look pleading for him to remain silent for a moment longer. She turned back to Zhangyi and Jiang. "We were searching for the leader of the Masks that night we met you. And we succeeded."

"What?"

"You did?"

"You were right, we left the meeting shortly after you boys. Because we followed you. We saw you meet with that Initiated who was providing you with more masks. And then we followed him until he removed his disguise. We saw who he was."

"You recognized him?"

"Who was it? Tell us."

Lili couldn't help hesitating. This was a big risk, relying entirely on her estimation of how they would react and this was quite a bit different from navigating the politics of popularity. "Xinfei here will back me up. We never lost sight of the masked man for a moment after he left you in the restaurant. We saw him." She took a deep breath. "It was the Fire Nation Trade Representative Amantza Tailang."

There was a moment of silence. Then Zhangyi furrowed his brow and said, "What?"

Xinfei stepped forward. "It's true. I've seen that guy before. And he was definitely a foreigner. He was faking an accent with you guys. He is some sort of theater fan, apparently. Heard him say it once."

This explanation did not appear to solve Zhangyi's confusion. He looked over to Xinfei and then back to Lili, as if he had somehow missed a large portion of this conversation.

"What?"

Behind him, Jiang took a sudden and sharp inhalation in terrible realization. Bits of the puzzle were clicking together in his head. "Oh. Oh no. The financier. Our first contact with the larger organization, the one who was giving direction, Li, he said he was from the Lost Territories. We'd have been suspicious his ethnicity otherwise. That man during the festival said Li was his man. All the targets he had us go after in those days, all the demonstrations that had any real risk, were against city merchants, stores, and government sites. We were told told avoid all foreign targets, and the organization, at least our part, did until last night with the Kuang Harbor thing that the man we met did not know about."

Zhangyi looked at his friend. "You said...you said that Tailang was benefiting from the fear of violence. The more angry the citizens got the more frightened the minsters became and ran right into the arms of the Fire Nation. But...No, no, that can't be true!" He spun towards Lili.

Lili stood firm against his advance. "It's true. I swear. He's been tricking everyone. And it was one of the Masks who killed Erliao. I know two women who witnessed the attack."

Zhangyi slammed his fist down on a nearby high table. He turned to his friend. "Jiang, you can't actually believe this. It's insane." It sounded like he was pleading.

Now it was Xinfei who spoke up, softly at first. "Well what the hell did you think was going to happen? You say you're all about protecting the people, but you guys weren't protecting the anyone. I've heard you guys over and over, you're more worried about some cultural purity than jobs and money and people living their lives."

As Xinfei continued more and more anger began to creep into his voice. His clenched fists were vibrating. "All your education, and you didn't think building a mob might lead to people getting hurt? You didn't even limit your message to just the Fire Nation. You were just yelling about foreigners. And now when you finally see what you've been doing, you won't believe it!"

Zhangyi was almost as tall as Xinfei, a good bit stronger, and held himself with the confidence of one born into wealth and power, but now he stepped back from the radiating righteous fury of a dockworker's son. Xinfei wasn't done. He looked up and spat his words in their face.

"You've been duped. Admit it! A Fire Nation politician played you for fools, and you were fools before it even started. Ha, my brother and his neighborhood watch have done more for this city in four days than you ever have! That's what it means to protect the people. To stand by their side and let them protect themselves, not turn them against each other."

Here Xinfei finally ran out of steam. The room was silent for a long moment as the two students and Lili stood in stunned silence. After a long pause Lili said, "Well..."

"And another thing!" Xinfei came around for one more pass. "It's not trade and machines that are the problem! You damn idiots! Of course we're going to build our own gas lines and mechanical factories and the trams are going to be coal trains, and, and...!"

Lili patted a hand on his shoulder. "All right, I think that they get it." Xinfei was trembling and looked to be in some strange halfway state between weeping and trying to rip out their eyes. Lili couldn't help but admire that passion. Then she looked back at these lost and browbeaten students. They were lost. They were being hunted by Public Safety and trying to defect from their own secret organization. She couldn't let them remain here, though. Where could she send them?

She tapped her finger on her cheek. "Xinfei, by any chance could your brother use some additional help down in the Harbor?"

...


	57. Overture

...

Chouyu's funeral had been held just before noon. Xiaobao helped carry the body to their local house of the dead. Usually it took much longer than this to secure the proper permits but by now even the Kuang Harbor funerary deputy had heard the rumors about spirits out on the streets at night. No one wanted to risk the spiritual backlash from putting off funeral ceremonies and the requisite papers were stamped in a flurry. So Chouyu got his clay disks over his eyes and was lowered into the narrow stone sepulcher. It was for appearances. Later, after everyone was gone, servants would remove his body and begin the process of reducing him down to the bones that would actually receive internment in the damp and overcrowded catacombs.

Not that any of it would help. If Ayika and that shaman woman were right then something was working to prevent the rituals from being effective. The city's dead remaining fractured, spirit and ghost prevented from reuniting and advancing on to the cycle of reincarnation. Everything was chaos and the living were already paying the cost. That was another thing the Masks were responsible for. The list was growing and Xiaobao felt each entry like a lead weight in his gut, replacing the aches of battle that Mua had healed away.

Surprisingly, this little ceremony had been well attended. Chouyu was aging, crude, and often drunk. Xiaobao would have called him a coward without a second thought and the man would have agreed. But that night he stood with the rest of the dockworkers as they faced the spirit-magic of the Masks. This morning, all those men and more had been there, along with Chouyu's equally grey-haired sister who looked like she might have preferred to be the one to do him in but nevertheless provided the appropriate bereaved wailing. However, out on the street outside the squat little brick temple there were other people, people Xiaobao had never seen before. Word had gotten out that a group of normal working men had stood up against the demons who tried to burn down the town. These harbor-dwellers had come to pay their respects.

As Xiaobao and the others exited the little temple he saw many of the people waiting outside nod their heads respectfully. It almost looked like those gestures were directed at him. Of course it could just have been that he was the one tall enough to stand out clearly from the other docks-men. That had to be it.

But that had been hours ago. Now the mourners were crowded into a large but cheap three-walled restaurant that specialized in these sort of occasions for the working-people of the town. They'd been there for quite while and those who were partaking of the bottles were by now getting very expressive in their grief. Xiaobao tried to join in the refreshments to get swept away from the anger growing within him but every sip reminded him of the taste of Chouyu's Islander liqueur that night. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, but still people kept coming up to him.

"It's dreadful what happened. Just dreadful."

Xiaobao didn't know this man but the stranger kept talking all the same. "You guys were out protecting the place and this is what you get, while now the guards are on a flipping rampage! And not against the witches that did this either. Nah, greenies just lashing out at anyone they see on the streets. I guess their superiors just want to see bodies in cells and people like us are a lot easier to catch than evil spirits."

Xiaobao muttered something along the lines of what he'd been saying all day. "We weren't trying to do anything. Just wanted to keep everything safe. Just watch out for our homes."

Somehow these meaningless words seemed to resonate with the man. He smiled, "Right you are. People were saying The Bao was the man and I see they got it right. I'm a harbor man myself and I still remember your father, sure I do. Not the biggest fan of those Islanders but when it comes to this I know where I stand. We all do." With that he turned and walked back out of the restaurant, nodding his head as he did so.

It hadn't just been harbor-dwellers who showed up. There were even some citizens from the Lower Ring who'd come down here to spend a little while in this dingy restaurant on a narrow side street. People across the city were nervous. They were afraid, and the story the Masks was spreading and growing with each telling. Another strange thing was also spreading. Xiaobao had seen quite a few people with black headbands wrapped around their foreheads. The headbands had two holes cut in them like the costume mask he'd been wearing that night during the fight at the train-yard. A lot of the neighborhood watch men were wearing them, but Xiaobao couldn't bring himself to ask about that. Enough people were hiding their faces these days, if some people wanted to make a statement about raised masks then he might as well let them.

The watch now had quite a few more members than it had a few hours ago. Things were happening quickly and no one actually seemed to think it was necessary to refer any of these expansions to their nominal leader. Xiaobao slumped back down at the table just as he saw his brother poke his head through the crowd that still packed the street outside.

Xinfei was irritated after shoving through who knew how many mourners. "Gah, what are all you people doing here? Come on! Yes, Maolin Bao's my brother, what of it? I work with these people so just...let...me!"

With a last grunt of exertion Xinfei managed to enter the restaurant and spot his brother.

Xiaobao looked up and said, "You missed the funeral."

"I know, and I'm sorry." Xinfei was still turning around to look back at the crowd outside the restaurant as if he expected someone else to appear. "I was supposed to be back before it started but...well, something came up."

Xiaobao lowered his brow. "I'd have thought better of you. Chouyu knew you your whole damn life. You know he was friends with dad. What could have...?" He broke off suddenly as he recognized the two young men who had just forced their way through the crowd to find a spot behind Xinfei. They looked very nervous and Xiaobao's fist tightened involuntarily to prove those instinct scorrect. These were two of the student nationalists; direct allies of the Masks.

"What are those-?!"

"Woah, hold on." Xinfei put a hand down on Xiaobao's arm. "Believe it or not, I don't think you're going to want to do that." He gestured over to the plainclothes students, for once not wearing their black and white uniform robes. "Lili sent them. That's what held me up. There's been a bit of a change of heart."

Zhangyi stepped forward and bowed his head slightly to Xiaobao. "We heard about..." He looked around and took time to carefully compose his words. "Miss Gaoli convinced us about who was really behind the...the political actions. We've been dissatisfied for a while so this betrayal actually..." He broke off again as he looked very uncomfortable. "Actually, could we move to a less dangerous location? This crowd looks one step away from an uprising. I haven't seen those black headbands before but I can recognize hostile symbology when I see it."

Xiaobao pushed himself up to his feet in anger. He growled, "Hostile? Dangerous? Where do you get off saying that? With what you've been behind?" All the frustration that had been building up in his chest was boiling forth. He looked down on Zhangyi and his friend.

He spoke in a low muffled tone but his voice rose with every word. "So, it's 'political action' when citizens do it, but when us down here have had enough with the city ignoring us and ring-dwellers tearing up everything, then it's hostile? We normal people want to protect ourselves and it's dangerous? Well, too bad. That 'glorious past' you and your friends are so keen on protecting didn't have us in it!" Xiaobao knew that this speech was muddled and confused. He had never been a great speaker, but these words were in his heart and somehow some of the meaning got out past his clumsy tongue.

Many of those wearing the black bands were watching the little group now. Xiaobao frowned and tried to reign in his anger again. Under it all he knew the university boys were right to be worried about coming here. Things would go badly if this crowd found out half of who they were. Xiaobao breathed out and said, "Sure, let's go somewhere else to talk." But before he moved his feet he turned to his friend sitting at the table. "Li, get me one of those headbands. I seem to have misplaced mine."

It was just a gesture driven by useless anger, but as Xiaobao yanked tight the knot on that black band a low cheer rose up somewhere within the crowd in the narrow street. It didn't quite catch on but neither did it die, and the quiet acclimation spread out down the crowded alleys like ripples.

Xiaobao led the way and let Xinfei bring the two rich boys along behind as they made their way to a less crowded street. The only sound was the occasional squelching splash as Zhangyi or Jiang showed their inexperience in navigating these ill-drained streets. Xiaobao was still fuming and he thought the students sensed this as they were at least not trying to speak with him right now. They crossed a small, arching stone bridge over a thin brown water channel clogged with canal boats and pushed past a precarious stack of woven reed baskets in front of a tiny shopfront. However, just as Xiaobao was giving the rich-boys credit for a small bit of silent wisdom Zhangyi pulled up to match his pace and said, "You know, we are...were trying to protect the people too."

There was a soft smack of Xinfei's hand meeting his forehead as Xiaobao turned around to face Zhangyi. Xiaobao spoke through clenched teeth. "Speaking of that, where are your fancy spirit masks? According to Xinfei you should have a bunch of them handed over by that Islander you work for. Hasn't that been your plan? Hand them out, cause a lot of random destruction?"

Jiang broke in, speaking up in his own defense. "Hey, we never trusted those artifacts much from the beginning. We just wanted to show people of how the government ministers were making policies against the citizenry's best interest. And now it's..." He changed what he was going to say. "Chonglong took those masks, but something's happened to him. I wonder if that's what the Trade Representative..."

"Figures." Xiaobao tried to sound merciless, but in his heart he felt a twinge of pity. He remembered meeting Chonglong. The young man had been big and full of bluster, but Xiaobao remembered the inhuman voices of the Masks who attacked the Miohuito factory. Could he really blame someone for what they did in that state, even if they willingly put the mask on their face? Xiaobao felt his anger draining away. Now he just felt tired again.

"Xinfei, why are they here?"

His brother opened his mouth to speak but Zhangyi interjected. "We're here because we still want to help the people. That Fire Nation... The leadership of our former organization was compromised against our knowledge, but we would still like to make amends. We have always wanted to help the people who are being victimized. Now we see there's a more immediate concern to be rectified before we focus on the industrial competition issue. Tailang's plot must be exposed but until it's uprooted many people are at risk. A grass-roots organization for coordinated citizen action is powerful but could always benefit from expertise in the methodology of civil protest."

Xiaobao blinked. He'd missed at least half of that. "Grass? We're not..."

Xinfei finally got his words in. "He means they've read a lot of books on how to do this sort of neighborhood watch political stuff without ending up in a Public Safety cell. Not that their record's very stellar there." He raised an eyebrow at the two students.

"You know better than any that the student committee was set up." Jiang said, snapping back at him. "Right now the only way we have a chance of helping those guys who were arrested is to expose what Trade Representative Tailang has been doing. That is what you're planning to do? You are working for Gaoli's, right?"

Xiaobao reluctantly knew that they were at least a little sensible. He didn't know what he was doing down here. It was only a matter of time until the guards noticed all these people wearing black headbands and the government had never looked too kindly on the common people organizing in the streets. He nodded gruffly.

Xinfei took advantage of that moment of silence. "Keeping people organized on the street so they don't tear each other apart is one thing, bringing down the top foreign official in the country is another. We need to meet with Lili and Ayika. And Mizumi too, I guess. And that witch Ayika's been working with if we have to. We all need to have a serious talk."

...

They were a motley group who met in Mama Mua's now rather cramped main room. Under the clunking reefs of wooden charms hanging from the rafters they joined to plan their move. On one side of Ayika were the two rich girls, surrounded on each side by the Bao brothers and the university boys, all of them facing the two benders, Nia Mua and Duoli Ma'er. That mismatched pair were looking oddly comfortable together, even though both were covered with still healing bruises and cuts from their fights with the Masks. There must be some brotherhood among those who could kill you with a single gesture. With everyone else looking hesitant to leap into this jumble of uncertain loyalties, Ayika elected to take control.

"All right, so according to Mizumi's Fire Sage, this spiritual crisis isn't going to get any better on its own. Ma'er's assistant Tian's still got Naruhama's burial mask which is powering all this, and even Ma'er doesn't know where that boy is. With it still out there the masks are just going to keep getting stronger" She found herself rubbing a finger against her temple. "But f we can't take away the Masks' power then we have to hit the leadership. The boys can testify that they heard Tailang admit to leading the Masks, and Lili can back up that all it happened. The guards'd have to hand on him over accusations of treason from three good Middle Ring families. If they arrested those other students on basically nothing then they'll certainly want to get a lockup for the master of the Masks. Look, it's crazy but that's the only chance I can see."

Mizumi was even less confidant. "Yes, but your city's enforcement personnel cannot enter the Exclusion, and Representative Tailang has shown no sign of being willing to exit it recently. How is he going to be arrested?"

Mua grunted. "That's showin' sense, for him. If he disrupted a burial ceremony like that sun priest says then Tailang shines like a target to all the spirits crossin' over these days. The disruption centers around the ghost mask but all spirits will be drawn to him, and they'll be angry. He'll be stayin' close to some place he's got warded up tight." A pause stretched as the rest of them considered exactly what they were facing.

A moment late the silence was broken. "There is one opportunity." Lili said from over in the corner. "Several days ago Tailang was very insistent in inviting my father and I to come to a special opera that's being hosted in a Kuang Harbor playhouse. Apparently, he's a big fan of theater. I guess that's how he could put on accents like he did to disguise himself and trick you boys, but anyway he should be leaving the Exclusion for that performance. He's invited so many Ba Sing Se personages that he has to show up or else it will be a significant sign of weakness, not to mention bad manners."

Zhangyi was instantly caught this excitement. He joined in, saying, "Yes. At the Silver Snake Theater? That's actually perfect. I've heard the Portmaster and other government officials are going to be there so there will be plenty of city guards on hand. In fact, with all the tension lately, there will probably also be a Public Safety agent or two hidden nearby. The Trade Representative will not have any chance to escape back to his refuge in the Exclusion."

The others turned to look at Ma'er, their perpetually glaring statue in the corner. He reluctantly nodded in agreement. "That may be the best opportunity. But a public confrontation like that is risky. A man's most dangerous when he thinks he's been cornered and those spirit masks are compact enough to sneak in almost anywhere. He could try to break containment." A small gesture set off twinges from his remaining bruises, souvenirs of his last fight. Mua glared at him, daring him to undo what her healing had patched.

"The spirits'll only get more powerful with each passin' night. And Ah've got no more favors to cash in to knock those possessed out of that. But sure, I'll be there at your play to do whatever I can. If Tailang killed Erliao for me then Ah'd be willin' to return the favor."

Xinfei held up his hands as he noticed how they'd suddenly jumped topics to murder. "Woah, woah, hold on. Look, it'd probably be smart to have you two benders stationed outside just in case, but this is all insanely dangerous. If the leader of the masks is venturing out of his hidey hole for a night of opera then why exactly do you think he'll be on his own? This could go south really quickly."

In the corner, Xiaobao had been silent but now he spoke up in his usual thoughtful and distant way. Under his new black headband this tone was now inflected with an ephemeral sense of power and significance. "Those Masks didn't look in control of themselves last time. The Initiated might be hesitant to use their masks now that they've noticed they're getting possessed, but if they end up where they've got no choice then the town could be at risk. The best I can do is try to make sure the guys set some people up outside the playhouse to keep an eye on things, and make sure that any chaos doesn't get the guards turning on the normal people in the confusion. We don't want a riot."

Jiang said, "Right. The gathering the black headbands is a good idea. Even if everything goes perfectly, such a major political arrest could send things spilling out of control. Do you really think the Fire Nation government is going to automatically believe this story?"

Mizumi shook her head, "They will not. At least not at first. But once Representative Tailang is in Earth Kingdom custody then Fire Safe Huitzlan will be able to safely tell what he knows of the conspiracy and that will begin to convince people. However, that first night will be dangerous. The arrest might even be seen an act of war."

Ayika nodded, "This whole idea's risky. There's a thousand moving parts but that's why there'll be five of us inside the playhouse. I'll go with Mizumi as her lady's-maid, Lili will bring Zhangyi and Jiang along with her."

Zhangyi started to say something to the effect that propriety would indicate the man escorting the woman but he caught sight of Ayika's expression quickly enough.

She continued. "Right, so it sounds like a lot of important people are going to be out for this play; means we'll have plenty of witnesses all ready. Three citizens pressing charges against a foreigner should be enough for an arrest. Though I'm worried about the guards being able to keep hold of Tailang if he gets scared enough to put on a mask, if he has one with him."

Ma'er stood up. "You're right to worry. But I...have contacts. I will send a message that will ensure the Public Safety Agency has a presence at this performance."

"Won't that spook Tailang and the other Islanders into not coming?"

Ma'er leveled a dark look at her. "Agents will not be seen. They will only reveal themselves once affairs threaten to slip out of control."

"Well that's pretty damn certain to happen." Mua muttered half to herself, half to the group at large. She turned towards Ayika. "Haven't ya felt it? The spirits are already creepin' out through every crack, messin' with all the minds they can reach out to touch. Our world affects the spirit world and their world pushes us just the same. The harbor, the Lower Ring, it's all out of whack. So sure, get your dockyard buddies, whisper to all your king-men buddies. But be ready anyway. Don't expect people to be actin' normal."

...

The Silver Snake playhouse sat in Kuang Harbor south of the hulking, green-roofed customs building that marked the tram line terminus. Though near that neighborhood of varied and aged government funded architecture on Temple Street, the playhouse was home to a different type of worship. In the dark after sunset the structure appeared to have burst up from the buildings around it, large, square, and gleaming with ten thousand lamps shining off brilliant decorations of silver and green paint. This was the exuberance of new money, loud and garish in the night. City guards were stationed out front watching the endless chain of carriages waiting to drop off passengers. The guards also spared a few nervous glances at the murmuring crowds of harbor-dwellers who'd been gathering at nearby cross-streets in every direction. Those black headbands were worrying.

The silk swathed theatergoers who stepped down from their foreign-made carriages were not residents of the harbor. They'd been drawn from the culturally disparate sources of the distant Middle Ring, the nearby Exclusion, and everywhere in between that might be home to lots of money. There were even a scant few noble aficionados who'd chanced the long ride out from the Inner Ring to see this theater troop from that newly named United Republic. Such disreputable outsiders were banned from performing within the city proper, so the draw of the exotic was irresistible. After all, with the current political climate it was impossible to say when another foreign acting troop would arrive. As the patrons swept into the theater's shining grand entranceway they shared excited murmurs about the fright they'd experienced seeing all those banded ruffians out in the street. Organized poor people were always so scary.

Tetzamatl Miohuito entered the building one step ahead of his daughter. Mizumi had tried to gain his permission to attend the performance with only a servant chaperone but after all the disruptions that were sweeping the city her father had listened to precisely none of her arguments. Still, it was evidence of his love for her that he agreed to take her to the play himself, and that he'd hurried to hire her the lady's maid she had selected as said chaperone and second set of watchful eyes.

It was under that auspice that Ayika stepped into the carpeted mezzanine lit by a hundred glass housed lamps. Despite her best efforts she still felt very conspicuous in this new blue dress. It was unadorned and so dark it was nearly black, as benefiting a servant, but still far finer than any uniform she'd worn before. It was also cut in the Fire Nation influenced styles of the day's high fashion and that emphasized certain parts of Ayika that she felt could have done without without the focus. The top incorporated a very short vest-like cape that was artfully cut to show off her bust and then at her hips there was another superfluous bit of cloth like a half skirt that flared in the back. The clothes were necessary of course, it would have been suspicious to see Mizumi Miohuito's companion dressed any less well. Not that Ayika imagined anyone would be looking at her tonight. At home in the Exclusion, Mizumi might prefer to wear the loose silk trousers and military cut tops that so many of the Islander women chose, but for an event out in the Kingdom she'd ordered something special.

In light of their mission tonight, Mizumi had evidently chosen for her outfit to make a statement of solidarity with the local population. What she wore could possibly be considered a traditional golden brocade qipao of the Kingdoms' fashion, though Ayika had to imagine that any traditional Kingdoms lady who saw this might have fainted on the spot. The collar fastened high on Mizumi's neck but then split for quite a while before it rejoined just above her chest. The rest hugged tightly to her skin, and though the lower hem reached down to her ankles it seemed a rather futile effort since the walking slits extended up six centimeters above her knees. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, save for Islander-style armbands around her forearms which were studded with enough gold plated ornaments and thick enough to disguise that something sharp might be hidden under them.

Ayika still raised her eyebrows from time to time at in amazement that Mizumi's father was this permissive. His bland acceptance of this outfit only raised questions as to what exactly was normal dress over in the Fire Nation. In the back of her mind, Ayika thought that those islands might be a nice place to visit.

The Miohuito party just had come from the Exclusion but even so Lili managed to arrive before them. Ayika spotted her across the theatre lobby, wearing a shimmering pale green dress and having an exaggeratedly normal conversation with Zhangyi and Jiang who both looked unusually well-outfitted. Lili must have taken it upon herself to provide them with costumes for the mission since they couldn't wear their black and white university uniforms here. The two boys looked uncomfortable in their own skin. Of course, they were about to accuse a powerful foreign dignitary of murder, sabotage, and spiritual atrocities so it was possible they weren't just worried about the new jackets.

Lili had been watching the theater's main door and so quickly called out when she saw the others enter, "Oh, Mizumi Miohuito! How good to see you! I haven't seen you at the school in weeks!"

Mizumi gave a quick look up at her father who frowned but nodded his head. As Mizumi stepped away Mister Miohuito met Ayika's eyes with a commanding stare to which Ayika nodded in response. She was here to protect Mizumi, in that they were in perfect agreement. Then she hurried off to the others.

"All right," Lili said as the conspirators joined together, Ayika standing slightly behind Mizumi and with lowered eyes as benefited an employee. "Tailang hasn't arrived yet but the place is crawling with city guards. There are also one or two particularly dour looking men among the guests who might be Public Safety but of course there'd be no way to know. One little thing. Unfortunately, for our little confrontation plan to work we need to know exactly where the Representative will be sitting and none of the servants seem knowing or willing to tell me. Zhangyi and Jiang will be caught for sure if they go wandering around the halls to burst into random viewing boxes."

The two boys had been hanging back together but now Zhangyi finally acceded to Lili's rapid gestures and joined her and Mizumi. As he came up he spoke seriously despite keeping a wide smile on his face for appearances. "Jiang and I can't remain out here in the front. Tailang's met us. He'd recognize our faces in an instant. Even if he does not think we know that he's behind the Initiated he might guess that something is up. We need to already be in position before he arrives."

Jiang was keeping track of the bigger picture involved in their scheme tonight. He looked over at Ayika. "Are your friends, Xiaobao's people, stationed outside in case things start getting out of hand? Or in case we need to make a run for it?"

She nodded. "Xiaobao's guys are there and Xinfei's with the two benders." Actually the number of black headband wearers Xiaobao had been able to gather on such short notice and little explanation was slightly alarming. Somehow the headbands had made it all seem more dangerous. Like the harbor was arming itself for war. But Ayika didn't mention these worries. No reason to give the university boys yet another reason to distrust the poor.

Mizumi murmured in approval. "That is good. And as for finding Representative Tailang's location..." She looked around the lobby. "Lili, by any chance do you know where the entrance to the behind stage is?"

When met with a circle of raised eyebrows, she elaborated. "The Representative is to be the most highly ranked personage in attendance, correct? I believe that in such cases theatre performers know in advance which location will hold the most important viewer so that they may direct their acting towards that spot. The actors will know, and they generally have less concern for rules of privacy than the staff out in the front might. At least, that is how it is in the Nation."

Lili frowned. "And how do you know that?"

Mizumi looked slightly guilty. "Er, truthfully? I read all of that in a novel."

Still, it was the best idea they had. Ayika nodded, "Right. Lili? Stash the boys. We can't risk them being seen before we make our move. Mizumi and I'll find out the seating info and then get it back to you to tell these two. All right? Let's go."

What she declined to mention was the incredible sense of trepidation that had settled down in her stomach. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and she could only hope that it was just fear. Mua was right about feeling the spirits touching this world. The spiritual crisis was getting worse and they would only have one chance to get this right. Everything was coming to a head. Tonight the conspiracy would fall.

It had to.

...


	58. Performance

...

Inspector Yang looked out over the guard tower's stone crenelations down at the illuminated weblike streets of the Lower Ring, yellow with lamplight. This air faintly stank. Yang frowned at that. The sewers of Ba Sing Se were a wondrous system but there would always be some unscrupulous builder who couldn't be bothered to conform to city law and so left a building inhabited by ten families with a single link to the underground system. The stink also meant that the bureaucracy's assigned agent had not performed their rightful duty in inspecting and reporting such a violation. It represented a failure of order. That was the reason Yang was so bothered by a foul scent on the air while below him citizens divided their neighborhoods up into fortified camps.

None of the civilians loitering in those streets would have admitted such aims to any agent of the government but Yang had lived in this city for long enough to recognize the signs of incipient barricades. The various dueling crowds below were not just the usual angry young men, tonight their ranks were also swelled with women and grey haired figures who were glaring around with just as much suspicion. There just so happened to be crates and barrels stacked up on opposite sides of neighborhood choke points, leaving barely enough room in the streets to comply with the city laws on non-obstruction.

In this ring the clashing groups were mainly divided by profession. The nationalist supporters were craftsmen who faced competition from imports, as well as the exceptionally pious and those older men who'd served in the war. On the other side, the so-called reformers were shopkeepers and their customers who'd noticed the falling prices associated with the Islanders' mechanized factories, coupled with people terrified by the rumors about the mask-wearing spirit warriors. For the moment, the city guard's demonstrations of force against any organizers had kept a lid on things. Yang was fairly certain that under normal circumstances he would be able to maintain the peace in his sector for tonight at least. But these were not normal circumstances. People were acting oddly, agitated, and there had been local priests who said that there was something wrong with the spiritual fabric in this part of the city.

Yang glanced over at the nearest lantern that hung from a black iron sconce and spilled its bright yellow light over the light tan, fitted stones of the guard tower. The flame inside the glass was swaying and dancing without a breath of wind. Even fire was behaving strangely down here and yet every expert had said that there was no way any number of firebenders could cause such a widespread phenomenon across the sector. Just how widespread, was something Yang had yet to determine. He had sent out inquiries but the neighboring radial sectors were unsurprisingly uncooperative in responding to such a strange request.

A sudden sound from the narrow streets below caused Yang's head to snap back around. The pitch of the crowds had changed. It sounded like the threat of violence. The Inspector barked a command to the city guard standing at his side and then smoothly leapt off tower, falling five stories through the night air. The paving stones of the road below reached up to catch him and cushioned his fall with magical ripples that vanished into nothingness as the ground returned to its former shape. Yang then strode off to the troubled intersection as behind him he heard the sound of city guards hurriedly preparing an armed patrol to follow him.

The streets were lit with crossing shadows from dueling lamps down the various paths. At the end of Yang's route were two large groups yelling a constant stream of insults at each other. Many of the civilians noticed the guards forming up back at the watch tower but they didn't care. However, soon enough someone also noticed the man in the long dark green robe striding in front of those guards. They recognized an agent of the Agency for Public Safety. Then there was a wave of quiet that swept through the more aware members of the crowd.

Soon, Inspector Yang stood in the middle of the intersection. He wished he could order the city guards to raise the street walls and lock down these neighborhood blocks. Unfortunately, the way things were at the moment these people were likely to tear each other apart inside and the barriers would only hinder the government's response to stop them. In the distance Yang could already hear the ringing of a district fire bell, the first what would be many that night, surely. This city was ready to explode.

One civilian in particular hadn't noticed the change that washed over the street population in advance of the Agent. He continued to yell at some man of the other faction.

"You bastards and your guys in the masks are traitors! Burning down houses and businesses, attacking ministers, you all should be hung from the wall by your ankles!"

The principle target of this tirade was a thick middle-aged man in a shopkeeper's blue-striped apron. His face turned red as he yelled back.

"Us traitors?! The merchants are selling us piecemeal to those foreign beasts! And who do you think's setting those fires?! Who do you think wanted the minister who spoke against them dead?! The Fire Nation's behind all this, and you lot are just stupid enough to believe their lies!"

Both men stepped forward, raising their fists. Then they both screamed from a sudden crushing pain as the bricks below their feet reached clamp down around their ankles. They nearly fell over but they now recognized the government bender in their midst. Two expressions arrived together at the appropriate terrified pallor. Yang didn't bother speaking to them but only gestured his other hand in the direction of one of the guards behind him. The guard advanced and yelled:

"All right people, back to where you came from! Unless you've got a provable reason to be out I don't want to see a single one of you in ten minutes!"

From behind the front lines of the crowd a woman called out, "What about the masked monsters?! We've got to protect ourselves and our homes!"

The guard yelled back, "There's no monsters! The guards are out in force tonight so you all stop worrying and go back home."

Out in the dark someone said, "I heard people are organizing down by the Kuang! They've got headband uniforms and civilian captains!"

"Now that just isn't true. For the..." The noise of chatter rose up above the guard's volume. "People! Disperse now or my men are going to begin providing you with assistance in doing so!"

Suddenly, Yang felt a repeated tremor from the brick street under his feet. The beat was one he recognized so he gave no reaction when the ground suddenly split beside him and a dark green robed Public Safety agent leapt up out of the black tunnels below. Yang let out a slightly heavier breath of resignation. Any message delivered to him this way would have to be important but the agent's entrance had nevertheless disrupted any facsimile of calm that he'd managed to achieve here at this intersection. The citizens were panicked again.

The agent bowed his head as Yang turned around. Then the agent presented a folded paper in both hands. "This message arrived at the central station earlier today but was... delayed in getting to you." He didn't offer any apology, but contrition and acceptance of consequences was written on his stony features.

Yang did not comment. Such an error was inexcusable but preparation for the mass deployment tonight had disrupted many of their normal systems. This was not the first delayed message he'd received today and he did not fault his men. The same distraction plagueing the city had seemed to be effecting them. Yang opened the message and hoped that it was one of the eventualities he'd planned for. Then his breath caught.

For the first time in years Yang spoke without intending to. "Douli Ma'er, you insane..." Then he regained control, even if below his robe he was vibrating with a sudden rush of nervous adrenaline. He snapped at the agent. "We return immediately. Guard captain! Disperse these citizens and lock down the districts." Any intra-neighborhood factional violence that might arise was now an acceptable loss. "There is about to be an international crisis in Kuang Harbor."

A new voice came from the crowd behind him. "Yes, there is. And you will not interfere."

The speaker was a man dressed like an ordinary shopkeeper. But in his hand he held a painted wooden mask as he raised it toward his face. Yang didn't hesitant. A heavy stone shot out from the depths of his voluminous sleeves and smashed into the man, blasting him back with lethal force. But even that had been too late. The mask had touched down on skin and the man was already rising back up from the splintered ruin of the storefront he'd just impacted.

That voice was changed now. It sounded like ice and wind and savagery. Faint blue light glowed around the Mask and slowly spread out down each limb, the echo of a wild spirit. This new fused creature spoke, "We have been called. We have been welcomed. And we shall reclaim this land from the abandoned wretches that now hold it. The chained fire has enabled this, despite his wailing. Thank you, humans."

Other voices, still human, called out now from among the panicked protesters.

"For the glory of our nation!"

"The gods of Ba Sing Se will live again!"

Yang's head whipped around, searching for targets. One after another, more colored auras flared up around men and women throughout the crowd. There was no way to identify these threats before they pulled out their magical tools. The Masks were here, and they were attacking in the open. Somewhere over the tiled eaves of the Lower Ring another fire bell began to ring, in the harbor Trade Representative Tailang was about to be publicly accused, and so the city spun towards war. In the lanterns and torches all around Yang the bright flames wavered and danced, responding to an unknown power in excitement or in sorrow.

...

It was easy enough for Ayika and Mizumi to get through the doors that led to the theatre's staff areas. One lobby steward had briefly moved forward to intercept them when he first saw the two girls heading away from the rest of the guests. However, when he got close and heard Mizumi's artful snapping in the Islander language while making frequent angry gestures back at some other patron behind them, he surreptitiously skirted away and considered himself thankful he didn't have Ayika's job. As soon as the man turned away Mizumi flashed Ayika a smile and together they slid around a corner to a little truncated corridor that terminated in a white door.

They paused for a moment to make sure no one was watching and then slipped past the door into to a long narrow hallway that led to the back of the playhouse. Ayika now felt that this plan to find Tailang might have some holes. Unlike the building's ostentatious front, these back rooms were bare and spartan. In her dark dress Ayika might pass herself off as some sort of employee, even with the little cape-like additions accenting her bust and hips. However, Mizumi was shining like a king's ransom of gold and showing as much skin as, well, as an Islander woman. Fortunately, they managed to slink down the length of the corridor without encountering anyone.

They opened the farthest door with a creak and that is when Ayika came face to face with a dragon. As dragons go, one made of wire and colorful cloth is perhaps the least distressing possibility but it was still surprising to run headfirst into one, so her yelp was understandable. Ayika managed to stifle most of her exclamation in time but Mizumi heard all the same, though she had the generosity to not say anything, even if she was grinning rather broadly. Together they stepped through that dark doorway into the surprisingly cavernous space behind the theater stage. They saw rows of wooden swords stacked beside piles of blue cloth oceans and the plate armor made of ribbons, all with not a person around.

Ayika whispered as they picked their way through the darkened clutter, "What's this play tonight about anyway?"

"It is the normal, really," Mizumi replied, dismissively. "I read it a time ago. A young woman catches sight of a soldier who is passing through her town and so falls in love. I do not think they ever actually talk but when he goes off to the war they continue to pine for that brief second they saw each other. The soldier has many sorts of interesting battles but the play continues to fixate on the girl who is complaining in her garden. Then she dies, and the soldier comes back to try and marry her but kills himself when he hears she is dead. And then there is a ridiculous ending where they both come back to life. I think the intent is something about the tragedy of war."

"Oh, you poor girl." A sudden voice whispered sharply out of the gloom. "How can one so young and beautiful have no romance in her soul?"

Ayika darted to grab Mizumi's arm but the mysterious speaker was quickly revealed as an actor woman in an elaborate dress who was busy applying thick white makeup in front of a small mirror and candle. The actor made a brief attempt to continue with these ablutions in silence but then gave up to her internal turmoil with a sigh and lowered the mirror flat on the little table before turning to further correct Mizumi.

" _Tsk_. It's not a story about war, it is a story of love. It is the tragedy of perfect love appearing where the world will not allow it even begin. Keqin the soldier could just as easily have been off taking an examination or, or, picking peaches for all the difference it would make to the core of the play." Ayika was shocked. Despite the beautiful and elaborate dress this actor was wearing it was in fact a man, a slight and slender man but a man all the same who was continuing to dab the white makeup onto his neck as he reprimanded Mizumi.

Mizumi didn't seen surprised by the actor's gender. Instead, she only grumbled a bit in defense of her own analysis. "Well, it was several years ago that I read it."

Suddenly, from out of the shadows a looming shape appeared clad in bulging green armor made of twisted cloth. This newcomer spoke in the same soft murmur but still Ayika could feel his booming power even so.

"Sungtae, we've only got...Who are these girls? What are they doing back here?"

The shorter actor stood and turned. "I have not asked. But they are not students of literature, that much I know. The one in gold was trying to say that this play is about warfare!"

Both foreign actors had variations on the same strange accent that must have been from the United Republic. They spoke the kingdoms' language very easily but they also sounded a little like Mizumi. The one in the dress certainly had Mizumi's combativeness as he now escalated his impassioned lecture while his armored fellow seemed merely resigned to this strange intrusion into their backstage. Sungtae was now gaining momentum in his critique and he rose from his seat, sweeping near to his co-actor.

"When Guiyun destroyed her gowns so that lecherous captain did not see her in them, was that about war? When she caressed the air imagining that she could reach out to the distant battlefield and touch the cheek of Keqin, did it matter that he was a soldier? No, all the politics and history is just setting like the painted backdrop on the stage. All that matters is the two people."

As the actor put forth his description he began to fall into the rhythms of his acting. He and his tall counterpart both swayed slightly as they slid through a light echo of the blocking for their upcoming performance. As Sungtae said his last he froze, pressed forward towards the cloth armor of his fellow and reaching up towards the actor's cheek with projected tenderness and longing.

Ayika was very uncomfortable. The only theater she was familiar with was the shadow puppets pressed up against a lighted sheet hiding a musician and singing puppeteer. She supposed that in those displays one man told the thoughts of both men and women but to see people fully embodying the counterfeit of her gender in this romance was unsettling and frustrating.

She said, "Why are you playing the female role? Wouldn't it be easier to just get a woman for the part?" There were so few jobs that women were allowed to do, how could being a woman not be one of them? Why were these men allowed to look at each other that way when others were not?

The false Keqin the Soldier muttered as he turned to fish around in a stack of props for his vast black false beard. "That's just not the way it is done."

Surprisingly, the male Guiyun was the one who agreed with her. "Yes! I have always held that this play in particular would benefit from a female Guiyun, at least for the sake of the 'comparison of doves' speech. But in the end it does not really matter. Theater is not about men and women. It is about stories. The stories are all that is truly real. If the words and emotions are right then it really wouldn't matter if we were on stage at all."

Another new voice emerged from around a large dresser that blocked much of the transverse path back here. "Which is no excuse for you two not being in full costume yet. And who are these? Who let these women back here, and Sungtae are you done with your makeup yet?" The third actor had the most elaborate costume yet, an eye-melting conglomeration of colored sashes and scales and fluttering strips hanging from wooden dowels which rose up behind his head. It seemed that a mask could be pulled down, visor-like, from under that flag strewed cap.

Sungtae gave a flicking swish with the sleeve of his dress. "Of course, Nokiun, calm down. Everything is going to be fine. I am sure those Fire Nation officials you are so keen on impressing will look down and positively faint with enjoyment." He fluttered a gestured out through the stage backdrop as if it were not there to some location in front of the stage and above. "They're right there in the center after all. With a little stretching, they could hand down your looked for tour offer to you on the spot if they chose. As for the girls-"

Mizumi interrupted, "We are sorry for intruding! It was only too tempting to sneak back here and get a glimpse ahead of everyone else. But you are right, we have delayed you fine men for too long. We should go to find out seats. Good luck!"

The third man flinched as Mizumi said this so loudly but their Guiyun smiled confidently. He gave a little wave as he raised up a thin white stage mask, painted in the effect of antique courtly makeup. The bottom half dissolved into a lace-like web of holes behind the painted lips but still the frozen face seemed to stare at Ayika knowingly, a beautiful woman from some imaginary time.

...

Lili fidgeted in her seat on the lefthand balcony of the theater stage hall. A moment ago Mizumi had stopped by the box on the way to her own seat under the pretense of whispering some last piece of inconsequential gossip before the play began. Then, after delivering the news about Tailang, she and Ayika had made their way out to join Mizumi's father on the opposite side of the theater. Lili saw them emerge from the door that led to those box seats, nestled between the thick wooden pillars that held up the whole theater space. Down below Lili, on the main floor of the performance space, there were a great number of tables occupied by other patrons who were receiving drinks and small snacks in preparation to watch the show. In the center of the space, the elevated protrusion of the main stage jutted out like a proud promontory overlooking the sea.

Lili knew she had to wait a moment before making her excuse to her father's man Mengre, her chaperone for the night, but she could barely stand it. The tension was growing by the moment and she still needed to give Zhangyi and Jiang their signal. Finally, those slow seconds had dragged by and she was able to whisper to her minder that she was going to go freshen up as she didn't know how long the play would be. Mengre frowned but said nothing. Even if her father had asked him to look after her she was still technically his superior, and he'd seen that there was plenty of security in this building. Lili's reassuring smile faded, if only she could be as confident about her safety.

Out in the hallway behind the seating balcony, Lili quickly found the small unused side room where she'd stashed the boys. When she opened the door Jiang was pacing anxiously front of a shuttered window while Zhangyi was tugging on the new formal jacket she'd provided him as if attempting to look at it from new angles. They both spun towards her with a start when they heard her enter.

She was terse by necessity. "Tailang's going to be in the center middle box with an entire party of Trade Mission officials. Apparently, he's waiting until the last minute to arrive, probably as a security concern. Prepare yourself for for a lot of people with him but I have a plan to make sure you have at least some assistance near at hand until the Public Safety agents reveal themselves. Just remember your signal for when to move."

Both boys looked like they had a lot of comments and concerns to add but Lili didn't have time to deal with any of that. She just closed the door and quietly dashed out down the hall. Luckily, she found what she was looking for soon enough.

The theater's entrance hall was now nearly entirely empty as most of the attendees had filtered inwards to their seats. However, at the bottom of the main staircase there was a city guard who'd been allowed to move his post inside the playhouse since the bulk of the paying customers were no longer around see him. Lili quickly started down the carpeted stairs and said:

"Oh, excuse me, officer. I don't wish to bother you, it's only that I was up on the second floor a moment ago and I saw a suspicious character lurking about, eyeing the fine silver-work the theater has on display up there. Now, I'm sure it was nothing, he walked away when he saw me coming, but I just thought that it might be best to tell someone more capable and let them decide."

The guard blinked at this sudden conversation but quickly recovered his footing. "Of course, miss. Don't you worry about it and head back to your seat. I'll keep an eye out."

She smiled gratefully. "Why thank you so much! That is a relief off my mind. Like I said, it is probably just my nerves getting the best of me." The supposedly targeted silverware display was nearly directly outside the Fire Nation box. That would ensure some a guard was at hand when the confrontation with Tailang began but they wouldn't be primed to stop Zhangyi and Jiang walking straight into the box. As she turned away, Lili smiled again now mostly to herself. Tonight should at least truly be a memorable performance.

...

Ayika glared across the open void of the theater space from her second level seat as Tailang made his entrance. The Trade Representative swept into his chosen central elevated box with all the energy to suggest that he was obviously who audience had come to see. The rest of his guests from the trade mission filed in more sedately behind. Many of them had been keeping abreast of the growing unrest in the city and clearly didn't share their superior's confidence at moving freely through so many locals. They'd seen Xiaobao's headbands out on the street and guessed that a mobilization of the native populace could not bode well for them. However, Amantza Tailang sat down at perfect ease and gave a permissive wave vaguely directed in the direction of the stage as if this performance was a private affair for him that he could initiate whenever he chose. Ayika narrowed her eyes. Well, they would soon change that tune.

Ayika sat in her narrow seat beside Mizumi and looked down over the low railing that separated her feet from the plunge to the tables below. As a servant-chaperone, only allowed here because Mister Miohuito wanted to ensure his daughter had a perpetual protective shadow, Ayika's seat was pressed up against the side-wall of the box. That limited her view slightly but she could still see enough to judge the play for herself.

When the theater fell quiet at the first notes of the wavering erhu string Ayika was skeptical. She watched the actors enter with stylized sweeping steps out onto the elevated stage, and though she recognized the amazing costumes, she was more concerned with the muttered irritation of the people sitting behind her who didn't appreciate having purchased box seats only to end up behind a tribal servant. It didn't help that the actors spoke in a drawn out, exaggerated manner that meant Ayika missed understanding every fifth word. It was silly; like little children playing dress up.

But soon enough, without even noticing when her opinion changed, Ayika found herself gasping and clutching at her heart with the rest of the audience. Keqin the soldier stomped and roared his defiance at the dangers of war, raising his grasping hand to dare the enemy to try their spears against the strength of his love. Just a few feet away on the stage and endless miles distant, the white faced Guiyun despaired. She'd lost her heart in a brief moment of soundless contact and she knew that she might never have it returned. Beside her the third actor danced and shifted his masked face along with his voice, flicking a hand in front of his head to somehow switch paper masks in a single moment. Now he was Guiyun's pragmatic yet cruel father, in the next instant he was the dark spirits who whispered evil forebodings of Keqin's fate.

Then the music was rising to a crescendo and Keqin and Guiyun had turned to each other to circle in an untouching dance as from a hundred kilometers apart they both pled with the infinite universe to let the other know just how strongly they felt. Then they froze and slowly drifted to opposite ends of the stage while the last note of the instrument slowly drained away.

When Ayika blinked she found her vision blurry as she looked down at the now empty stage. Somehow tears for these fake people had snuck into her eyes. Then she felt a hand squeeze her wrist and her heart skipped.

Mizumi whispered, "This is the half point of the performance. This is our signal. The dragon now folds its wings to plunge."

The expression was foreign to Ayika but the translation was clear. This was their chance to expose Tailang and once started they couldn't stop. Ayika looked out across the theater to see Lili sitting in her box on the opposite side. In fact, it was already out of Ayika's hands. Beside her, she could hear Mizumi struggling to control her breathing as they both waited, tension transforming them into statues.

The stage had been quiet for a few moments and the buzz of conversation was only just starting to rise from the crowd when suddenly there was a loud bang as wooden doors slammed open. Most of the audience spun around in surprise to stare up at the Trade Mission's box. The front tables on the theater floor and all the box seats could clearly see Zhangyi dramatically framed in that doorway, posed like the conquering hero of his own play. Then the university student took a few steps forward, followed behind by a less dramatic but equally resolute Jiang.

When he wished to, Zhangyi had a truly fine voice. Now it rang out across the play hall. "Amantza Tailang of the Fire Nation! We, Zhangi Mao and Jiang Li are here to expose you for your crimes against the city of Ba Sing Se and the Earth King!"

He took a single step forward, finger outstretched in accusation through the stunned silence. "We name you responsible for the attacks against the property of Aizhang Gaoli, Huang Gong, and Tetzamatl Miohuito, for inciting our city's populace to violence, and for ordering the murders of both Minister Chao Erliao and Professor Chen Lizhen!" Zhangyi turned out to the audience at large. "People of Ba Sing Se! Amantza Tailang is the leader of the dangerously violent organization now known to the city as the Masks! This we testify, for we were once members of that same conspiracy!"

The theater was no longer silent. A riot of clashing noise broke out as nearly every person leapt to their feet at once, many calling for conflicting actions. It was pure chaos and out of the corner of her eye Ayika even saw the actors peek out from behind the the stage exits. In fact, there was only one person who didn't erupt with panic or outrage. Tailang sat calmly in his seat with a faint smile on his face. He was clearly surprised by the student's dramatic entrance, and recognition flitted across his eyes as he saw Zhangyi, but he did not look afraid. Instead, it almost looked like he was trying to refrain from laughing.

Then he rose to his feet and called out in a single booming roar that seemed to reverberate in every person's chest.

"Lies!"

There was a moment of shocked quiet that Tailang then seized as he continued in a calm yet commanding voice. His foreign accent tickled around the edges of his words in an nearly imperceptible way that somehow made him sound more knowledgeable and trustworthy than a city native. It was an impressive trick.

His voice rolled and rumbled along lyrically. "I had wondered when the isolationist ludites would get this desperate with their hatred of my people. Still, this attempt is pathetic. I am the leader of the insurrection terrorizing my own countrymen? I killed Professor Lizhen, who had always defended peaceful exchange between our cultures? I somehow disappeared Sub-Minister Erliao from his own house while simultaneously hosting a fireworks party in the Trade Mission Exclusionary District? That is ridiculous. My dear boys, someone has bamboozled you to a terrifying degree!"

"No!" Jiang yelled back, moving forward to stand by Zhangyi's side. "You personally met with both of us during the Festival of Veils. You gave us money and masks as you ordered us to continue to creating displays animosity towards the Fire Nation! You called yourself the highest of the Initiated and asked us to arm the populace with your spirit masks! All that proves you are the leader behind the attacks!"

"You met with a man during the Festival of Veils?" Tailang now sounded almost pitying as he projected out like a talented actor. The man was in his element, and the more charges levied at him the more energetic and convincing he became. Already the audience was murmuring in hesitant agreement. "The night of disguises? Tell me, young man, by any chance was this contact of yours _wearing a mask_ when you 'identified' him?"

Suddenly another voice broke in, higher pitched but no less loud. Lili sprang to her feet and thrust out her arm to point at Tailang out across the gap between their boxes on perpendicular walls. "You know full well that you were wearing one! But you didn't know that I was there too. Then I followed you, hidden, until you removed your disguise! I am Lili Gaoli, daughter of Aizhang Gaoli and I testify that this is true! Representative Tailang is the leader of a conspiracy to destabilize our city! He is the chief Mask!"

For the first time Tailang was thrown off his balance. There was a brief but revealing moment when the gifted communicator was at a loss for what to say. He quickly recovered but people noticed that stumble.

Tailang was haughty and imperious as he roared back. His gaze searched the theater for a face he expected to find. "What is this? Now Gaoli's youngest daughter claims to have been spying on me? Really Gaoli, you couldn't even find the courage to accuse me yourself? But in any case I now understand this farce, at least. People, this is a pathetic plot! The merchant Aizhang Gaoli has been stealing proprietary Fire Nation machinery from his trade partner Tetzamatl Miohuito and my office recently caught wind of this. Apparently, Gaoli thinks these absurd accusations against me will be a distraction, giving him time to cover his smuggling tracks!"

"Not true!" By now the more astute audience members had notice the trend and were already looking for the next interrupter, so they located Mizumi very quickly. In fact, it seemed that her father was the only one who was caught completely flat footed. Beside him, Mizumi stood up ramrod straight and clenched her fists at her sides in martial attention.

"My name is Mizumi Miohuito and this man has been destabilizing the political and spiritual balance of this city for his own gain! Fire Sage Huitzlan will agree to the same as soon as he feels safe from retribution. The spirit masks were stolen from the Fire Temple! Sage Huitzlan also says that Representative Tailang is responsible for the dangerous desecration of the funeral rituals of Ambassador Aza Naruhama. He has committed crimes against this world and the Spirit World. As a betrayed citizen of the Fire Nation I call on the authorities of Ba Sing Se to seize Trade Representative Amantza Tailang for the good of all nations!"

Tailang spun to look out across to the other balcony and his eyes met Mizumi's with pure confusion. His self control was slipping and he seemed adrift in a world that was coming apart at the seams to lash out at him. Ayika felt a surge of pure triumph as she rose to stand by Mizumi's side. He might not know who they were but they would be his downfall.

If the theater was in uproar before, now it was now pure chaos. Tailang might have been attempting to put forth some rejoinder but anything he said was lost in the sudden cacophony. Several of the Trade Mission officials attempted to slink away but there was now a city guard blocking the door, drawn from his silverware watching post by the tremendous commotion. In the pit below, several fist fights had already started between political factions amid the tables and chairs. Other people were running out, fleeing the building before things got worse. There was even someone from the audience climbing up onto the empty center stage. Amid all the other drama occurring, no one paid that man any attention until he stood up un the stage and began to slowly clap.

The room was a riot of noise but something about the man's slow, forceful motions grabbed people's attention. The incipient riot died for a moment as they recognized someone standing above them, silhouetted at the front of the stage by the lamps meant to illuminate the actors. Then he began to yell out across the crowded theater.

"Well done, children. A fine arraignment for a notorious criminal! However, I feel obligated to amend one of the charges slightly. I have _not_ been murdered."

Sub-Minister Chao Erliao stood on the lip of the stage and in his hand he held a painted wooden mask. To Ayika's eyes it already glowed with otherworldly power.

...


	59. Crescendo

...

Xiaobao and Xinfei leaned back against the cold grey brick of a shuttered fabric shop across the street from the Silver Snake Playhouse. Over by the theater's glittering entrance there were several uniformed city guards leaning in much the same position as they provided their own security for the distinguished patrons inside. Xiaobao saw those men give a few nervous glances at him and down the darker sections of the street in each direction. The guards thumbed their sword hilts. There were a lot of other people out in Kuang Harbor tonight and many of them were wearing black headbands. The guards didn't like that.

Xiaobao, however, was proud of the town. Whatever this neighborhood watch thing had grown into, he knew that it was rooted in a core of anger, frustration, and fear. It would have been all too easy for that kind of organization to turn against those who'd been calling them traitors for making their living off foreign trade. So far that hadn't happened. There had been a few close calls but as much as he hated to admit it, those college boys had given some good suggestions. Assigning patrol routes and regularly mixing up postings kept people busy and moving. When they were doing something they didn't feel as helpless in fear of fire, spirits, and the furious government.

Suddenly a sound in the dark caught his ear but even so it took Xiaobao a moment to decide what it was that made him glance up from the pools of lamplight on the paving bricks. On a night when even he was expecting to see the suggestion of spirits flitting in the shadows a strange noise could really be anything. But this sound was the slap of human sandals against the ground in the alley across the street.

Two men in theater staff uniforms came running out of the shadows into the light spilling forth from the blindingly bright playhouse facade. Xiaobao reached out to bump his brother's arm for his attention.

"Look at that. Ayika and them must be making their move inside."

Xinfei looked over at the two runners, and he was soon joined by Ma'er and Mua who materialized out of their own dark corner behind him. The workers must have fled as soon as the first accusation started flying inside. That was probably sensible of them but Xinfei still frowned. "Wait, why would Public Safety risk anyone like that getting out to spread rumors?"

Mua grunted dismissively. "Maybe you're overestimatin' those greenies-"

"No," Ma'er interrupted. Underneath his granite-like expression the earthbender was worried. "The boy's right. Yang should have had every exit watched and barred before there was even a hint of crisis. With the warning letter I sent him he would have taken no chances in letting witnesses escape. Something is wrong."

The guards in front of the theater had also heard the running and turned around. The workers, however, were not in the mood to deal with any officers of the law. They were in a panic and they were spreading the news.

"The Fire Nation's burning down the city! The masked spirit warriors are Islanders! They've murdered tons of people!" They yelled out to the town in general and the guards in particular before continuing to bolt on down the street.

Ma'er let out a short powerful curse before saying, "And that is why you lock down the exits. Yang isn't here."

Xiaobao felt the panic rising up in his chest. "What do you mean? Your Public Safety aren't here? How? Damn it, damn it!" This could all go up in flames if that story spread. People would attack the Exclusion and who knew what their firebenders would do in exchange. Well, that's why Ayika had trusted him to have sensible people out here as a second line of defense. He ran forward into the middle of the street and waved his arms as he yelled out down the direction the theater workers were running. A group of black bands were posted up the lane. "Hey! Stop those crazy guys until we know what's going on!"

Xinfei ran up to Xiaobao's side with a pained expression on his face. "If Tailang's not already in cuffs it's going to be a bloodbath in there, and the girls are in the middle of all that! Tailang and his goons are going to start blasting their way out with firebending even if they don't use the masks. They've got no one to stop them! He'll cut through everyone!"

Their own bender insurance policies were paying disturbingly little attention. Ma'er was even facing the wrong direction, looking back towards the city wall looming darkly in the distance. High up in the night there was a light flashing from the battlements above the gateway fortress. Xinfei hissed him, desperate for information. "What's that saying? What's going on?!"

The earthbender shook his head. "It's coded but such an obvious communication method is only used in moments of crisis. Something kept Yang from responding to my message. Someone must be making a move in the city."

"Someone's makin' a move here too," Mua broke in, walking slowly in the direction of the theater front. She was holding her head and seemed to wobble slightly. One of the guards had opened the front door to investigate and now they could hear the sounds of screams and running feet spilling out from within. "I just felt it. The Masks are here in force!" She wavered. "Grah! They're all going to cross over. There are too many holes in this damn city!"

Another group of people, again mostly theater workers but with a few who looked like guests, came running out of the building. Now some of the the city guards and the approaching volunteer black bands joined in the shouting on the street as confusion spread. The sounds of panic were rippling out into the distance of neighboring roads.

This stampeding fear could consume the town. Everyone who feared the Islanders would have their worse fantasies confirmed. Xiaobao roared out at the no one in particular or the entire night-enveloped country in general. "Hold on! We've got to hold on to the peace!" If the people of the town wanted to invest a no-one like him with authority then maybe, just maybe, some might listen to him now when everything was falling apart. Listen to him say what, he didn't know. The plan inside had failed.

Xinfei ran forward, bolting toward the theater doors.

Xiaobao shouted after him, "Xinfei!"

His brother only ran faster. "The girls are in there! Have to save them!"

Mama Mua suddenly sprinted along beside the boy, throwing herself into the heart of the turmoil of people hurrying out of the building. Then Ma'er was following those two. As he passed he called out to Xiaobao. "Do what you can! Hold out for the government response!"

Then Xiabao was left standing in the street. He black band friends were running towards him but for that brief moment he was alone with the spectral shadows made by the glass housed lanterns whose flames were dancing a strange dance. Then the screams started.

...

Chao Erliao stood on the edge of the stage with the spirit mask in his hand, backlit by hooded lanterns meant to illuminate the actors He was alive. Ayika saw the mask, recognized its purple marks, and at once knew the terrible mistake she'd made. She remembered being pursued by a man possessed by purple wings. A man who'd burst forth from Erliao's quarters after they heard a scream. There had been no mysterious attacker laying in wait, Erliao himself had put on the mask in order to fight Mua. Put on the mask and then been completely possessed by the wild spirit which forgot everything but hate.

"Surprised?" Erliao glared up at Tailang in the upper balcony before him. "Your nation's attempt on my life was a failure!"

Tailang goggled down at the seeming resurrected minister, for brief moment forgetting the slate of accusations that had just been levied against him. "Erliao? Where have you been? I knew those idiotic students weren't competent enough to have actually killed you."

"I was saved!" Here Erliao raised up the mask to present it triumphantly to the crowded theater. He seemed furiously insulted by Tailang's confused reaction. "The spirit gods of our great city have preserved me from your harlot assassin!"

The astonished crowd of theatergoers murmured. Some few had fled at the first hint of disruption but those who remained were entranced by the conflict that was unfolding before them. Erliao was dirty, disheveled, and dressed in ill-fitting clothes. The arm that held the mask trembled and twitched. It looked like he hadn't slept in days. It was evident something else had been sustaining him.

Tailang leaned back slightly as he looked down on Erliao in flat amazement. He said, "Ah, so you have completely lost it. Well, I guess that explains what you've been doing these last few days. And your old witch sweetheart tried to kill you? Well, I'd just thought she would be an embarrassment but having met you I cannot say I blame her." Now he suddenly remember the personal political crisis that had just erupted moments prior to Erliao's emergence. He turned back to the astonished Zhangyi and Jiang his balcony and resumed his powerful orator voice, now at once sympathetic and patronizing. "You see boys, someone has used you as fools! All your accusations against me are completely baseless; the invention of petty, jealous men! I'm not behind any conspiracy!"

But Erliao would not consent to be ignored. He screamed back, his voice shaking with fury. "No, you are not the leader of the Masks! Because I reclaimed them from you!"

Ayika could feel a void opening up underneath her heart. They'd gotten it wrong. She'd gotten it all wrong. At her side she could feel Mizumi trembling with tension. Even Tailang was momentarily silenced by surprise and confusion at the outburst.

Erliao stood on the stage, growling out each word thick with anger and hate. "You foreign scum. You poisoned this city, and had the arrogance to create your own enemy. The so-called nationalists were harmless student demonstrations and mild meaningless vandalisms, all at your order and for your gain. They let you play the victim so well. So perfectly in control. You must have felt so very clever!"

He took a breath. His hands were trembling but he continued, half muttering to himself and half preaching to the crowd. Tailang was right, Erliao seemed unhinged though Ayika feared that only made him more dangerous. "But I've won. Justice has won and I was happy to pay the price! Doing away with your undercover servant was easier than I'd ever imagined. Then, with your messenger gone, the organization was mine. One little death to save the city and the gods themselves smiled on me. When I touched the society's disguises I recognized they were filled with our nation's own holy power. It was a message to me. Everything I'd studied in my life had led me here. I wasn't punished by the spirits, I was rewarded! These masks! Every day they grow stronger as they are wielded by the just and righteous servants of our city! With them I had soldiers! I had warriors to strike back against the invaders and the corrupt! You have underestimated the gods of our great culture!" Ayika's heart sunk still further with disbelief. Erliao didn't know where the masks came from. The leader of the Masks didn't understand the source of his power.

Then she heard Lili's high pitched stifled scream from the opposite balcony. She looked down to see more audience members pulling out masks from hiding places within their clothes. There were a lot of them; far too many. Ayika gripped the wooden railing in front of her, as to her eyes the air seemed to ripple around that many masks held so close together. Ayika's plan had been doomed from the start. They'd gotten it wrong, disastrously wrong. But at least Ma'er had arranged for Public Safety agents to be here. Surely they would burst forth at any moment.

Gods and Kings, she was actually praying for Public Safety.

"You murdered Hiro?!" Tailang was now raging back, completely oblivious to the danger of the masks below him. "Guards! Seize that man! He has just admitted to a capital crime in front of two hundred witnesses!" As the Representative thrust his pointing finger out, Erliao began to slowly raise the mask up nearer to his face. Tailang yelled out triumphantly, "It's a little late to disguise yourself, you evil little-"

"No!"

The cry tore itself out of Ayika's throat and she felt her chest ache from the effort.

"Erliao, don't!"

Heads snapped up to look towards her, most of them staring at Mizumi first, expecting the Islander to have spoken again. Ayika panted as she saw Erliao slowly recognize her. Her own thoughts at once seemed glacial and racing beyond control. If Erliao had truly been behind the Masks, behind them murdering Professor Lizhen and old Chouyu then she hated him. But she'd seen the thing that had chased Mizumi and her on the night of the Festival. It hadn't been a man, but an inhuman spirit that wore him like a puppet. That was something worse than death, and then everyone in this theater would be at risk. She had to try and stop it, even if it meant saving a murderer.

"You don't understand! Those masks aren't powered by your cause or your patriotism! Your men stole the funeral mask of Ambassador Naruhama. Now you guys are empowered by a half-deified Fire Nation ghost! It's bringing down the barrier to the spirit world and bringing in wild spirits! Last time you wore that mask we had to..." To explain Mua and Blind Dog Lord would take too long. Seconds were precious here. "You won't get the spirit mask off the same way again! Everything's worse. If you put that mask on now you could be consumed forever!"

Erliao narrowed his eyes as he finally recognized the other foreign girl who had saved him from Mua's murderous intent. "Ah, Chen's last sad devotee, with his last little student. I suppose it's fitting you're here at the end. But you too are wrong. We've never stolen anything." Consideration and a touch of fear battled behind his face. He looked down at the mask in his hands. The theater paused in a breathless confused hush.

Ayika breathed out, "Please. Don't."

Erliao did not look back.

"So be it. It is a sacrifice I gladly make to save my culture."

Then he pressed the wooden mask to his face and a sound beyond hearing screeched through the fabric of the world. Ayika felt a pressure behind her eyes as colored auras flared into life around Erliao and many others down on the lower floor. The chorus of screams told her that everyone else in the audience could see it too.

Phantasmal purple wings boiled into existence, flaring out from Erliao's arched back. Then his masked face snapped up, focusing on Tailang with an animalistic intensity and burning eyes. He crouched and sprang, rocketing through the air like a dart from a bow. Then he came crashing down; smashed through the wooden railing of the upper box and lashed out everyone there. A sudden blast of fire bloomed into existence as some firebender in the Exclusion party fought back. Erliao wavered before the force but the licking flames didn't sear his skin, shielded as it was in the expanding body of the spirit that was using his as a doorway into the material world.

Mizumi sprang forward from her seat. In half a moment, her foot was on the railing as she prepared to climb around the outside of the balconies in a heartrendingly heroic attempt to join the fight. Panicked, Ayika reached out to clutch her but Mister Miohuito was faster. He seized his daughter's arm with enough force to cause her to gasp in pain as he tugged her back.

Mizumi yelled out, "No, father! We have to-!"

Mister Miohuito didn't say a single word but bodily pulled Mizumi with him as he rushed for the exit from the box driven by fear-driven strength. Ayika ran after him, even as some poor victim from below was tossed through the air to slam heavily into the wall beside the box before falling back down to smash onto wooden chairs. Amid the first floor tables and in the Fire Nation box above, the other Masks had already fallen to complete possession. The spirits that inhabited them had been called to this world by the desire to fight and now they were fighting everyone and everything regardless of politics. These spirits were not the orderly gods of the city, but the wild exiled forces who now had a gateway for their inhuman power. They were playing, and humans were dying. Ayika ran and could only hope that Lili and the students could get away too.

...

Lili staggered out into the street as a wide chunk of the front of the playhouse exploded into splinters behind her. The silver head of an ornamental snake statue went flying over her shoulder. Time seemed disjointed. She'd run through the shuddering halls inside and she'd briefly seen Ma'er and Mua enter the fray, joining their elemental magic with the bender members of the audience who'd been attempting to fight the Masks. A moment later, as she half ran, half fell down the lobby staircase she'd seen some of those same well dressed benders lying as dark crumpled piles amid holes through shattered walls. Now she was outside but the screaming and roar of supernatural strength was no less deafening.

She felt a tug on her arm, hard enough to hurt her shoulder, and remembered that Xinfei's hand was gripping her own. He'd found her stumbling in the lobby and together they had managed to force their way out the front doors that were clogged with screaming, fleeing patrons. She might have been screaming herself. Somewhere along the line Lili had lost track of Mengre. She wondered if he'd gotten out. She'd known him in her father's house all her life.

Xinfei was saying something to her:

"Come on! Maolin's out here! We'll get you away. Where's Ayika?!"

Lili looked back at the playhouse that already had smoke spilling out the holes that earthbenders or Masks had knocked into its walls. Some Islander firebenders tried to fight, but once the fire they summoned left their control and touched any material fuel it didn't need their magic to sustain it. The building was going to be an inferno very soon.

Suddenly a thick arm wrapped around Lili's waist and half-lifted her as she was hauled back across the street. Xinfei's face lit up with a small measure of relief as he recognized Xiaobao.

"Maolin! Where's-!"

"Ayika and Mizumi got out! They're over there!" Xiaobao pointed over down the street. Lili managed to focus her eyes and saw Mizumi struggling against the grip of her father, resisting his attempts to make her flee. Then the stream of panicked people shifted and Lili saw Ayika standing firm in the middle of the brick-paved street, somehow forcing the crowd to part around her by pure will. Her face turned back and forth in constant searching for something in the crowd. Then she saw Lili and spun back to call out something at Mizumi.

A man wearing a black headband ran up to Xiaobao. He was panting and heaving as he said, "They said the benders are all dead! You've got to get out of here!"

"No!" Xiaobao was not the shy, polite young man Lili had first seen on the streets outside her home. He was firm and somehow looked even taller and stronger than he already was. The black cloth band stretched across his forehead. "They're...There are still people in there! We've got to try and help them!"

Other people had different priorities. Some of the civilian earthbenders who'd escaped were now using their magic to raise up crude brick barriers in front of the first floor doors and windows, as if that could seal the masked monsters inside. The ladies among them struggled against the formal playgoing clothes that restrained their magical motions. A glance back through the remaining doors to the destroyed theater lobby revealed that the space was now filled with thick white smoke. Then that false smoke swirled together into a compacting stream of water drawn from mist, revealing Mua and Ma'er rushing out of the vanishing fog, vaulting over a rising earthen barrier. They were followed by Zhanyi and Jiang who did not manage to clear it with the same ease and tumbled across the rough ground beyond. Jiang yelled out in pain as he hit the paving stones.

Mua coughed as her magic guided the floating water back into her large stoppered pouch before she bent over, propping her hands against her thighs for support. Ma'er didn't even take a moment to rest. He yelled out at the other earthbenders and their futile walls, "Forget that! Fires have spread! The building is lost! We have to bring it down!"

With that, he sank down into a wide low stance and thrust out his fists, causing the stone at the corner of the playhouse to crack and shudder. The other earthbenders were not government trained, just theater fans with the appropriate family lineage for the gift to manifest, but in the chaos like this anyone who sounded like they knew what to do was like a raft in a flood. The message spread out and the earth magic users ran to undermine more points of the structure.

Xiaobao ran up to Ma'er, shouting, "You can't! There are probably still people in there!"

Off to the side, Zhangyi unsteadily climbed to his feet. He sounded hollow. "If there are, none of them are getting out. Those...things are playing with the fallen like cats with injured mice. Erliao... what was Erliao, he beat down two firebenders and then focused on Tailang. I saw it break the Trade Representative's arms one by one, and then it snapped his neck. I think it was curious."

There were soot marks across Zhanyi's torn jacket and a bloody scrape on his forehead. Jiang looked worse for the wear, favoring his left leg, but he had been in Tailang's balcony box when the Masks attacked so the fact that he was alive at all was remarkable.

Lili felt dazed. She stood dumbly in the middle of the street, distantly wondering how everything had gone so wrong. Then she was suddenly moving and it took her a moment to realize that Xinfei was pulling her again.

"I've got to get you out of here," he said. "Ayika!"

"Here."

Suddenly, Ayika was at her side and the three of them were running over to Mizumi and her father. As soon as she saw them, Mizumi broke free from her father's pulling grasp and proceeded to reverse the action by pushing him in the direction he had been trying to make her go. She yelled something at him in the Islander language as they took off. Mister Miohuito yelled something back and Mizumi broke into the Kingdoms' language out of sheer frustration.

"We are not getting the carriage! Look around! Are you insane?! We run!"

They dashed off down the dark and chaotic streets as behind them there was a creaking, rumbling crash. The earthbenders had begun to bring down the playhouse. Lili suddenly noticed that Xiaobao, Zhangyi, Jiang, and the benders were missing. They must have stayed behind to organize some sort of response from the black bands. Ayika called out the plan in between pants.

"We're going to the Exclusion! The bits of the Fire Nation group passed us a few moments back! Mizumi's dad can get us past the bridge and that place has their army people!"

They rounded a corner and from down another street they suddenly heard an outburst of screams. Then there was a familiar inhuman screeching roar. The Masks had escaped the theater and were loose in the town.

A few seconds later, as they ran under stars towards the distant orange glow of the Exclusion that was just visible over the dark roofs, they heard the soft rustle of something flying overhead. Lili yelped in fright for a sudden Mask ambush, but then she wheeled around and saw three humans in the dark green robes of Public Safety bounded across rooftops towards the center of the disturbance, black against the starry sky. Each time they landed, the tiles beneath them reached up to cushion the fall and then launch them off again in less than a second. Their bounding path was heading toward the center of the disturbance. Lili prayed that those men stood a chance against what they would meet.

The fleeing party ran on and then the red towers of the Exclusion were in front of them. The illuminated forest of buildings now at once represented foreign danger and sanctuary. There were city guards in their green uniforms bunched around the entrance to the arching Bridge of Fire and beyond them on the bridge itself was another group, these dressed in red and looking considerably more committed to their assignment. Mister Miohuito began to yell out to the city guards as they approached but one hint of his accent led to that nervous detachment hurriedly opening up a path for the strange fleeing party. These men had no orders to keep foreigners from secluding themselves in their own territory.

The Fire Nation marines further on the bridge were more cautious, but after a brief shouted conversation with Miohuito they grabbed him and Mizumi to bring them in past their human barricade. However, they were less welcoming to Lili, Ayika, and Xinfei. That sparked Mizumi to start shouting out quite loudly in the Islander language and whatever she said eventually earned the three of them passage, though the soldiers' were clearly not happy about it. As she passed the marines, Lili noticed that many of these men and women weren't armed. However, that meant they were firebenders and far more deadly than any sword.

Their strangle little group of theater refugees were just cresting the half-way point of the Bridge of Fire when Mizumi began openly discuss her plan. "We must halt the magic of the Masks, somehow. If Mua cannot summon up the dog spirit again then perhaps Fire Sage Huitzlan can aid us! We do not have Mama Mua here but perhaps you can lend your power the Sage like you did before on the train, Ayika? Even if it is a temporary fixing we must try."

Ayika nodded. "Yeah. Let's-."

"Hold it!" Mister Miohuito yelled out, startling his daughter and Ayika who had both seemingly forgotten there was anyone else there. He confronted Mizumi as his voice escalated to a roar. "Mizumi, what have you gotten into?! How could you accuse...?! And who is this tribal girl, really? No, we are going straight to the house and we are going to remain there. They attacked the Trade Representative! This could be war!"

Mizumi understood his fear but she said, "Father, we-"

"No! You have put yourself in terrible danger! This must have something to do with Lizhen and that school if both Gaoli's daughter and the tribal are involved. I never should have brought you from the Nation but now-"

"Father!" Mizumi stamped her foot down so hard Lili could have sworn that the entire bridge vibrated. Mister Miohuito froze for a brief moment in the middle of his panicked paternal anger. Then Mizumi continued:

"There is a terrible spiritual threat to both our people and the people of the city. I am trying to solve it. Ayika knows more about spirits than anyone here and together with Sage Hutizlan we are going to stop this force before more people get hurt. I love you, and I am sorry, but there is no time to explain everything that has happened!" There was a moment of shocked silence. Then Lili rapidly began:

"Tailang stole some spirit powered shaman masks for a nationalist protest group he secretly created but he didn't know they had real power so Erliao figured it out and desecrated the funeral of Naruhama to strengthen the spirits and steal control of Tailang's men but now the spirits are too powerful to be controlled and they're possessing everyone and we need some sort of ritual to find Naruhama's ghost mask and shut it off."

There was a brief pause. Miuzmi blinked in surprise. "...Yes. Thank you, Lili."

Mister Miohuito let out a single word, "But-"

Mizumi interrupted. "Get back to the house. Organize protection for the staff. Ayika and I will go to the temple and hope they can help banish the spirits, at least for tonight. I have seen such a thing done before, on the night of Veils."

Mizumi and Ayika didn't wait for Mister Miohuito to protest again. They broke into a sprint and hurried off the bridge down to the Exclusion streets, striking off deep into the compact settlement towards the Fire Temple that loomed at the opposite end. After a second Lili began to move to follow them but there was a gentle tug on her hand. Xinfei quickly let go as she turned back to face him.

He said, "Look, you'll be safe here, Lili. I'm sure these people'll burn down half a ring before they let anyone in to harm their own."

Lili noticed what he was not saying. "And you're here too so it will be _all_ of us being safe. Right?"

Xinfei threw up his arms in frustration and defeat. "I don't understand any of this spirit stuff! How could I help Ayika with any of that?" He turned back to the Kingdoms side of the bridge. "But my brother's out there. All my people are out there and if I can't fight any Masks at least I could maybe do something while you girls are talking to priests and ghosts. Something to help. Just...stay safe."

He actually managed to take three steps back up the bridge before a soft, smooth hand gripped onto his wrist like a vice. Lili glared him in the eyes, all the fear she'd been drowning in now melting away beneath her righteous fury.

"Don't you dare be a damn hero! Those are my people too! This is our city!" She took another step closer, looking ever so slightly up to glare at his amazed stare. "I don't know anything about spirits. I don't know that Mua woman or the Fire Sage. Mister Miohuito doesn't want me and I think by now Mizumi and Ayika have forgotten me entirely. But I know that I wouldn't be able to stay here huddling in safety for more than two minutes before I couldn't stand it any longer! So step up, Xinfei, we're going together or I'll go by myself!"

The dockworker and the merchant's daughter held still for a long moment. Then Xinfei burst into a disbelieving laugh. He nodded and they began to run back across the the bridge. They pushed past the startled Fire Nation marines who were not expecting anyone to come at them from behind them. Lili called out at the soldiers as she ran by. "Tell Mizumi Miohuito that Lili has gone to join the Black Bands! Find us if she can! And if a Mengre shows up, tell him I'm sorry!" Then Xinfei and her were running off to the town.

Lili spent a last spare thought hoping those men had been able to understand her language.

...


	60. Victory

...

Ayika and Mizumi ran through the crossing shadows of the gas street lamps as fast as their playgoing outfits would allow. Mizumi hadn't said a word since they had slipped free of her father. As they raced off, his angry shouts had become further accented with fear for his only daughter. Then he was left behind in the press of the looming buildings and towers. Even as they ran Mizumi's mouth was clamped shut, her nostrils flaring in breath as she held on tight to the emotion inside. Mentally, Ayika tried to lend her strength. When they had time, Mizumi would be able to explain to her father. Once they fixed things. If they fixed things.

The Exclusion was long and thin but ahead the bulk of the tall Fire Temple pagoda rose up, its ranks of flaring wing-like eaves abruptly emerging from hiding behind another multi-story building and burning dully red with shielded lanterns. As they turned a corner and came onto the temple's street Ayika saw the entrance with its two large iron brasiers blazing with furious fires. No one was standing outside.

She said, "There's no one here in front. Is that normal? I thought Huitzlan was freaked out?"

Mizumi shook her head but said, "They might have gone off to the edge to help protect. The whole Exclusion is on high alert. News of Representative Tailang's death got here soon ahead of us. Hopefully, Sage Huitzlan is now free to help us at the very least." Her brow was knotted with barely disguised worry. Ayika moved forward to provide some reassurance. Then her breath caught in her chest as her eyes went wide.

"Spirits," she whispered.

They were all around them, fading in and out of view in the shadows like wisps of red, purple, and yellow. More than Ayika had ever imagined seeing. They stood on the stones, they hung in the air, and they stepped through solid walls. They were strange, even for the spirit world. The spirits she'd seen before had all held some twisted reflection of the City and its people; some vague sense of familiarity in their dress or in aspect. These did not. Ayika saw twisted flanges of gold, capes of black smoke, and fire that was not fire, burning bright and strong. One by one these forms turned their tri-faced heads her way and quietly regarded the tribal girl wandering through their midst. Then they returned to look at the temple, as they slowly drifted towards it on the street or through the empty air high above. They were the godly spirits of the Fire Nation that had followed their people here. Their whispered sound was that of a faint cymbal crash reverberating through the alleys.

"Mizumi, the spirits, I hear them. It-"

Mizumi looked around, blinking her eyes as if struggling to see something out of the corner of her eye, but then she help up a hand to quiet Ayika. "No, I hear that sound too. The gongs? That is a real thing. They ring those gongs when there are rituals being conducted in the temple. But what could they be...? Maybe Sage Huitzlan is already trying to banish the Mask's spirits."

They pushed forward through the cloud of alien gods. Then Mizumi put her hands up to the heavy iron bound door and pushed. To their surprise it parted easily, with only a faint sound of ripping paper. The widening portal revealed the long front hall illuminated only by the dancing light of an open fire deep within. The sounds of foreign chanting echoed within and another soft cymbal crash resounded in the muffled distance.

Mizumi stepped inside and began to speak. "Something is odd. Sage Huitzlan should have locked..." Then as she glanced back she noticed something startling. "Oh, he really is worried. With the Representative gone I think he may have forgotten about the human threats."

She stood inside and looked back at the temple doorframe. Ayika stepped through and saw that the entire inside surface of the front door and all the walls beside it were plastered with strips of paper decorated with scrawled black characters. Vaguely in the back of her mind Ayika knew they were spirit repelling charms. And then she realized how she knew without reading the language.

Outside the temple, blanched against the roaring light of the twin iron brasiers, the foreign spirits were moving closer. Ayika saw a bird beaked human form that wore a crown on its head and carried a scepter held in front of an androgynous bare-chested body. It slowly drifted forward as a red skinned phantom with a long protruding nose leaned down from where it hung in mid air to glacially extend a long black staff towards where Ayika stood. More were crawling forward, wavering in and out of even here sight, a growing horde, nearly blind to the material world they slid through. They'd been drawn by the girls' passing, but they still did not cross the threshold.

Mizumi grabbed Ayika's arm. She gestured vaguely in the direction of the spirits. "Hurry, I do not know what all that colored haze out there signifies but I do not think we want to be amid it. Come, we must find Sage Huitzlan and tell him what has happened."

Ayika nodded and took a step away from the temple door. Then she stepped back and struck out to slice two firm fingers through the strips of paper that criss crossed the heavily carved and embossed walls on each side. Many of the bands ripped and split easily on the first pass. Then the remaining ones on the doors parted as well to a similar gesture, only leaving intact the few spirit charms that were stuck very close to flat portions of the wood.

"Ayika! What are you doing?"

She was not sure. She was operating on a feeling, but everything she had seen said that feelings were powerful in the spirit world. It would have taken a very long time to paste up this many spirit charms. Much longer than it had been since the theatre attack. "Trust me," she whispered as she wondered at her own voice. Why should Mizumi trust her when she didn't fully understand her own actions? Why was she acting on a vague, inarticulate suspicion? These spirits wanted to come in, and so she was easing their way. They looked angry.

But Mizumi did trust her. There was only the briefest moment of hesitation before Mizumi nodded and helped finish ripping the charms. Then they both turned and walked through the long hall of dark wooden pillars, every inch covered with the carved forms of spirits and heroes, winding in a constant struggle or dance. Ahead stood an elevated central fire in front of the large ornate door that led to the inner chamber.

The sounds of ritual chanting in the Islander's language grew louder. Mizumi rushed forward to this inner door and reached out to throw it open. But then she hesitated just before her palms touched the carved red wood banded in metal. Ayika recognized this instinct. There was fear and reverence toying in Mizumi's mind. The sanctity of sacred spaces was implanted deeply in every person of this world. Ayika knew this even if she'd never been part of any such sacred place herself. She'd never been one to go to the government temples or their priests. For her, all those powers had been bound up in her Grandma Aka and in some abstract idea of the City its self. Now she advanced and lifted her hands up beside Mizumi's. Together they pushed on the doors to the inner sanctum as the final word of the chant faded out of hearing. That word was one even Ayika recognized; "Naruhama".

The first thing Ayika saw was fire. A ring of fire around every wall which quickly resolved into many individual balls of fire held magically suspended in the hands of red robed priests. In the middle of it all, on the elevated central platform before the central water-filled plinth was Fire Sage Huitzlan in all his finery. In front of him the oil burned on the surface of the offering pool. In his hand he held gold coins that slowly slid through his fingers to vanish through the floating flames with a plop. It looked like the same deification ceremony that Ayika had seen before, offering up power to the soul of Naruhama. But the Sage knew the rituals were a trap. There was no one left to force him and yet he continued.

Mizumi yelled out some question in her language, each word filled with shock and anger, as she thrust out a finger to point at the old sage in the raised center of the room. Huitzlan's eyes widened slightly in surprise at Mizumi's sudden appearance but other than that he showed no concern. He gestured both his hands to the other priests and spoke a short, dismissive sentence. They looked shocked but began to move back towards the exits.

Mizumi didn't accept this as an answer and yelled out again, this time in the language Ayika could understand. "You are performing deification rituals again! Why? Tailang can not threaten you anymore! These rituals are only empowering the destructive ghost of Ambassador Naruhama! You must stop, the Masks are running wild through the city! Do you know what you are doing?!"

Huitzlan looked down with self-satisfied condescension. "Of course I know." His voice was heavily accented but surprisingly smooth, even surpassing Mizumi's fluency in this moment of her agitation.

"I am drawing forth the angry, powerful spirits through the shaman masks to drive out the pitiful so-called gods of this land." He almost sounded pitying, as if ashamed for them. "Who did you think arranged for Aza Naruhama's funeral mask to be 'stolen'? Do you really think that muddy rabble of natives could have entered this temple without my permission? My dear, I must say this confusion is as much your own fault as it is due to my deception. My story was so full of holes. I even forgot to give you an excuse for why the ambassador's funeral procession featured a fake mask!" Above all he sounded triumphant as his admission hung in the waving heat of the heavy air. Before him, the fire on the water wavered and clutched towards him in some strange echo of his power.

Thoughts began to flash together in Ayika's head. After all this heart ache and pain, the man had casually confessed to be the one behind the weakening of the barrier between worlds. He had purposefully released Naruhama's unquiet ghost on the city. That meant he was responsible for the masks possessing people. That meant he was responsible for all of this. All the others, Zhangyi, Tailang, Erlaio, had all just been pawns.

But she had no time for thought. The Masks were rampaging now. She could figure out the why of it later. She just needed it to stop. She said, "Please, just stop! It's over! Tailang's dead. Lizhen's dead, the student' are torn apart, the Initiated are all slaves of the wild spirits now. Erliao admitted to murder, if they can ever get him out of that possessed mask! All your adversaries are gone, and the King of Kings will be convinced that Erliao was behind it all, since he publicly confessed to that. Call it off now, take that power away from the masks before they destroy everything! You've won!"

Huitzlan looked over to Ayika as if she was a strange talking bird. The other priests had all finished filing out of the room before he spoke again to Mizumi. "Amantza Tailang is dead? That is an unexpected benefit. I had simply expected your accusations against him to keep him occupied for a few weeks. I take it was one of the possessed who did it, as is fitting. And what did you say? Erliao, the minister? I thought the pathetic man was killed days ago, during that local festival."

Ayika felt herself sag like a puppet with its strings cut. Huitzlan wasn't lying. He didn't know. He barely remembered who Erliao was. Ayika was dizzy. Questions collided behind her heavy tongue. How? Why? If he was the mastermind behind it all then why did he not understand what was happening?

Mizumi yelled out in a desperate plea for reason against hope, "Things are beyond control! The Masks are killing people, and the spirit world is spilling forth. You have gotten everything you can hope to get. Please, turn over Ambassador Naruhama's ghost mask and burn it properly so that we can end this! Soon the possessed will turn on the Exclusion and everything you value! There is nothing that you could gain now that would be worth this!"

The sage sneered down at the girls beneath his plinth. "As if I care for this measly prison of a settlement. But in any case, I do not have the funeral mask here. Please try to listen, I just told you I gave it away. The act of killing Aza Naruhama placed enough of a spiritual bounty on my head and the ghost mask would have only magnified the call to hungry spirits. That is why I sent the object away with Amantza Tailang's catspaw natives, so they could destroy it themselves or at best hide it somewhere deep in the city where the disruption could strike at the heart of the local gods. Now that Tailang is dead I suppose no one can!" the old man laughed. Ayika's stomach churned, he thought that Tailang still controlled the Initiated.

The old man in his red and gold robes spread his palms regally. "I must say, young Miss Miohuito, you gave me a fright that day when you came here and told me that Naruhama's mask had found its way into the hands of Chen Lizhen after all. At least Tailang's local agents were competent enough to kill the professor and get it back. In all this degenerate land, that Lizhen was perhaps the only one who would have instantly recognized such a thing as the ghost mask and known how to complete the burning ritual. After all he learned from me. Then all my work would have been for nothing."

"Work..." Ayika gasped out in horrified disbelief. "You just admitted to killing the ambassador. And Erlaio said that-"

"What does Sub-Minister Erliao have to do with anything? As for confessing, I suppose I'm fortunate that neither of your opinions matters for much." The old man was sickeningly confident. He smiled as he began to spin a tale.

"Miss Miohuito, I am afraid you were distraught when you ran in here on this frightening night. When I spoke of Amantza Tailang's involvement in the death of Ambassador Naruhama you got confused and thought that I was somehow also involved. You were quiet insensible after that, ranting about strange conspiracies, poor thing." Huitzlan twisted his wrinkled mouth into the grin of the powerful and privileged. Mizumi was standing right in front of him having heard a confession and she didn't worry him at all. Ayika, the strange Water Tribe servant, didn't even factor into his coverup. She wasn't even worth a lie. She was nothing.

Ayika could barely bring herself to process what he was saying. Huitzlan didn't know that Erliao had been commanding the Masks. Tailang hadn't known that the masks called spirits, or that Erliao had usurped his control over the nationalist group. Erliao hadn't known that the desecrated ghost of Naruhama was what was causing the masks to become unmanageable, or that Huitzlan was involved at all. All three men thought they were controlling this city and all three were working at cross purposes to each other. Ayika's mouth worked open and closed in stunned disbelief. None of them had ordered Lizhen's death. They all thought the other had done it. This had just been a spider's web of accidents. So much death and sorrow, and no one had planned it. No one had been in control.

Mizumi had a more direct way of dealing with existential crisis. She burst forward into a full dash, the deep leg slits of her golden qipao allowing her to rush Huitzlan's burning podium in seconds. As she ran she reached under her left armband to pull forth a small knife. For a moment, even the Fire Sage was astonished by the ferocity of this sudden attack. She cleared the steps three at a time and struck out with a loud yell. Then he punched the air in front of him with a single magical motion and everything exploded into sorcerous fire. Mizumi was thrown back screaming, shielding her face with her arms even as her upper arms and legs caught the force of the heat. She hit the floor of the chamber hard.

Ayika found herself kneeling at Mizumi's side before she even noticed that she'd moved. Mizumi groaned and gasped through gritted teeth as Ayika tried to hold her, avoiding the spots where she could already see pale skin being outlined by a rush of blood hurrying to what would surely be painful burns. Ayika snapped her head up to glare at Huitzlan above them on his platform and a sound she didn't recognize burst forth from her throat. It was a growling roar of pure hatred like a cornered animal. She felt her lips pull back from her teeth as her heart thudded deafeningly in her ears. It sounded like drums calling for war.

The firebender looked almost pitying at the two women below him. "That was foolish." He shook his head. "Miss Miohuito, you asked before what I stood to gain from this. The answer is nothing. I do it solely for the benefit of others, for the wretched fools who live in this city, enslaved by their miserable history. Soon the deification will be complete. Aza Naruhama, who in life was a constant thorn in my side with his incessant talk of peaceful cooperation and respect for native culture will be the power that fuels the cleansing of this human cesspool! Tonight, all the sinful dead of this city will burst forth, and wash away the feeble spirits of this land, making way for our own gods! The gods of Fire and Honor, of Strength and Innovation! And as it is in the spirit world so is it in the material world. New spirits will dwell here and the natives of this city will have their minds subtly shaped to bring them out of the dark vault of tradition. The natives will from this day be shaped into our image, not by conquest but by the spirit world. Then one day they will be as great as our own people! This is my gift to them!"

Magical fire spouted forth from his spread hands and the air in the chamber rippled with heat and light. Suddenly, Ayika felt a shiver travel down her back. There were frightened shouts outside the chamber. Then the continued absence of the other priests through all this commotion was quite adequately explained. A tall, bird-faced spirit stepped through the solid wood of the closed grand doors from the main temple. It held a ghostly burning sword in its hand.

Huitzlan blanched in sudden fright at this spirit's entrance. It frightened him in a way nothing yet had. "How?! I saw to the excluding charms myself! Even if they were broken, my power in this temple...the rituals. There was no one to issue a call-"

Ayika slowly rose to her feet. "You're not the only one here who knows the spirits."

The little hole she'd ripped in the Fire Sage's defenses must have been enough. More spirits proceeded to drift through the walls. Three headed dragons, women wielding blazing swords, and dark things made only of smoke all advanced. They were the spirit gods the Fire Sage had wanted to welcome into the heart of the city. But Huitzlan had been right; murder and desecration drew the attention of the spirit world. Tonight, the spirit world was close enough to reach out and grab what it wanted. It seemed that these gods did not agree to the Fire Sage's plan. He was faithful, and so he was theirs. Lizhen's lessons had taught her well.

Huitzlan now looked down and for the first time really saw Ayika. "You," he spat out, containing in that one word every vicious insult to her people that had ever been spoken.

Ayika tore her eyes away once more from Mizumi's pained breathing and raised them to meet his. "Yes, me." In her mind she echoed every moment of power and authority she'd ever seen in her proud Grandmother Aka or in the passionate Nia Mua. Ayika had been born in this city and she stood here wearing Fire Nation clothes, but in this one brief instant she knew she was a daughter of the Water Tribe, a shaman of the People standing before the spirit world and one who had disturbed it. And this was her city.

Huitzlan growled and looked away from her, concentrating his attention on a stream of rapid chanting in his own language. His hands shifted in constant patterns, recalling lessons and rituals learned decades ago, formulas promised to calm the spirits.

The advancing spirits halted, their feet and claws and wings freezing in place as they floated above the floor. Huitlzan knew more of the spirit world than Ayika could likely learn in a lifetime. He was in the center of his power surrounded by layered decades of rituals. Then the sprits turned to look down at Ayika. With spirits, ritual was important but exchange was what mattered. Huitzlan had destroyed all his credit with the spirit world. He had nothing left to offer that they would accept. Ayika had everything. She felt strength rising up from below as she planted herself in the world against the might and fear and rage that was stacked against her. Then she nodded, and the sprits turned back to Huitzlan.

The Fire Sage's eyes boggled. He spat out curses at Ayika, and then lashed out with fire at the spirits. The nearest ones drifted in the air to duck out of the way of his flaming jets. Clearly bending could effect them in a way which normal matter could not. But more were gathering in the room by the moment.

At Ayika's feet, Mizumi slowly pulled herself up, wincing and blanching at the pain from the red areas on her upper arm and lower leg. She stood beside Ayika and placed her other hand on her friend's shoulder. Together they watched Huitzlan flail on his perch before the burning offering pool as he punched out jets of magical fire at the encircling spirits. He was only barely keeping them back as their numbers grew. Then, suddenly, a new sense of calm settled over the beset Fire Sage.

He gave a small laugh. "Of course." He looked up to meet the gaze of the bird-faced spirit with its burning sword. It floated before him, approaching above the burning water of the deep offering pit as its weapon rose over his head. "The noble spirits would not abandon the good intention of my project. But they would enforce the cost. The power of exchange is everything. If I had continued with these traditional offerings of gold and iron, then some native priest would eventually have been able to unseat the dark god I have made of Aza Naruhama. I had forgotten the old stories. I had forgotten the old ways."

Mizumi's hand tightened on Ayika's shoulder as Huitzlan leaned down to grab something behind the alter, ready to pull her back in some protective gesture. Then Huitzlan straightened up, his wizened hands laden with a length of heavy chains. He began to hang the thick iron links around his neck like a piece of tremendous jewelry. The spirits were now creeping closer, reaching forward to grasp at him, but he seemed unconcerned. Then he looked down to speak directly to Ayika, clinking with heavy metal chains draped around his thin body.

"Sacrifices must be made for a ghost god to be born."

Then the old man threw himself forward into the burning water of the offering pool.

Mizumi screamed out, but Ayika just froze. She had figured out what was about to happen a single breath before it occurred. The surface of the water lapped and splashed, spilling its sheen of burning oil to leave rivulets of fire running down the sides. Huitzlan was gone, pulled down deep into the pilar of dark water under the floating fire, the last sacrifice offered to the restless ghost of the departed Ambassador Naruhama. The room was silent except for the faint lapping of the dark water sloshing back in lessening ripples. Even the circling spirits faded out of sight. Existence took a breath.

Then every particle of the world groaned and every fire in the room burst forth with new anguish. Ayika clutched her head as she opened her mouth and could not hear the sound that spilled forth from her lungs over the sound of ten thousand scrabbling hands pulling themselves forth from the void beyond this world. Deep out somewhere in the brick canyons of Ba Sing Se, the unquiet ghost of Naruhama was now a god. The veil was torn and the dead were coming.

...

"Pile that high!"

Xiaobao was fairly certain that this group of Kuang Harbor residents would have continued stacking tables on top of that overturned wagon in the middle of the street whether he had yelled or not. However, Jiang had insisted that it would aid moral if he were to shout out directions at regular intervals. The strange thing was that it seem to be working. The barricades were being built. Elsewhere in the town, chaos reigned as the insane Masks brought destruction to all around them.

"Right," Zhangyi said at Xiaobao's side. "If I'm right about the layout of the map here, then this barrier should confine most of the violence, er the action to the central area down from the Craftsman's Gate. The government forces are still fighting the Masks across the town, but at least we can limit the number of citizens exposed." The student had apparently appointed himself to some leadership position directly under Xiaobao's own, whatever that was supposed to be.

Jiang squinted as he looked around, trying to get his bearings in this dingy neighborhood off the main streets of Kuang Harbor. He murmured, "Not technically citizens since they live outside the city wall, but that doesn't really matter. And this is all assuming no bender pushes the Masks over that line. Those spirit possessed people seem to take the path of least resistance when left alone so they might not jump the barricades otherwise. _Might_."

Xiaobao's head was pounding. The air smelled faintly of smoke. When they were prepping for the failed theater plan Ayika and Mua had said something about the dead Fire Nation ambassador was affecting the lamps and torches, any open fire. Xiaobao had arranged two bucket-lines already to fight small accidental fires that had nevertheless turned into destructive blazes in moments. Mua and Ma'er were down the street with one of those lines, taking a break from their attempts to fight the Masks. Those desperate fights between the possessed and random knots of benders had already leveled three more buildings that Xiaobao had seen. In a battle between two types of magic there was not a normal man like him could do. Off to the side, Zhangyi and Jiang were talking to people; saying who knew what.

Xiaobao looked up at the cloudy night sky to see a single ember floating through the air. It had wafted up from a fire several streets away and despite having traveled so far, it was somehow still glowing bright orange. Its lazy motion on the currents of the air was almost peaceful somehow. Such a thing could be dangerous if it landed against a paper screen or some woven baskets but this one bumped harmlessly against the wooden wall of a building and began to fade away. Xiaobao breathed in and out. Then the lone particle burst into a rush of flame larger than a fist.

"Woah!" Xiaobao yelled, rushing over to beat out the freak fire with a water dampened broom that had been donated to the cause of civic defense. "Watch out, guys we've got a..." He stopped talking as the fire failed to go out. In fact the blaze grew, licking up the solid wooden wall. Now Xiaobao was becoming concerned as well as confused. "Guys! There's something really strange-!"

A jet of water blasted over his shoulder, soaking him with the spray that rebounded off the wall. As Xiaobao sputtered and wiped the water from his eyes he actually saw the strange fire fail to go out for a moment. For that brief second it continued to burn under the force of all that water. Then it was gone and Xiaobao turned back to see Mama Mua, wide eyed and panting.

He said, "Hey, so what was-?"

"Shut up," the woman said as she twisted around frantically as if looking for something in the bricks below her feet or in the nighttime sky above. "Something's happened."

"Xinfei said that Ayika was going to try something with the fire priests. Do you think that that it might have worked? Maybe this was some sort of magical side-effect that..."

Mua looked back at him with contempt across her blanched face. "No. I don't think it worked. Something's gone very wrong. The border between the worlds' been torn open."

Xiaobao looked over at Ma'er for some confirmation but the other bender showed no readable reaction beyond a slight narrowing of his eyes. Lacking any better clue or extra-natural sense, he turned around vaguely. He had no idea of what he expected to see. "That doesn't sound good."

Mua let out a single snort. "No, it's not good. All the spirits of this land who've never cared for humans can come spilling over and with them, the dead. The hungry ghosts are rising."

Xiaobao opened his mouth to say something but before he could down the street he saw another knot of the black bands working at the barricade where he had just been. What a second ago had been an exchange between two men of understandably harsh words born of stress and fear had erupted into a vicious fistfight which was now dragging in everyone else stationed on that street.

"Hey! People! Stop this!" Xiaobao ran down to where the fight was, his heavy footsteps thudding on the uneven brick street. He grabbed the two nearest combatants by their collars and forcibly pulled them apart. "What is this? Come on, you know that we've got to keep working together!"

The man who's collar was in Xiaobao's left hand spat out, "I was! Then this guy goes crazy and starts saying I've been disrespecting him!"

"You have!" The other man yelled back. Xiaobao tried to think back, he thought that the man was a fish-seller. "You keep making digs at me, and you thought I was just going to take it! Well, not any more!" Xiaobao had remembered this man as being meek when he had first come over to this barricade station, almost to the point of disability. Now his eyes were wide and his teeth were bared.

"Easy man!" Xiaobao said, shaking the fish-seller slightly to get his attention. "Calm down. There's no need to fight each other. What's wrong with you?"

The voice came from behind Xiaobao's back. "The ghosts Ah just mentioned. Get away ya damn thing!"

Mua came forward and was muttering in what might have been her native language. She angrily waved her hands at the furious man that Xiaobao was still holding at bay. Then she yelled something at the air around the man's knees as he managed to regain some small bit more control over his emotions. Whether from the effectiveness of Mua's ghost banishing or from sheer embarrassment, the fight finally drained out of him and he muttered an insincere apology to the man he had been fighting with. Xiaobao thought that most of that might be because he wanted to get out of Xiaobao's grasp and away from the unsettling Mama Mua but he could understand that motivation. The tribal woman was suspiciously eyeing the paving bricks.

When it looked like people were not about to leap back to each other's throats, Xiaobao set them back to workings on the barricade to occupy their hands. Then he turned to Mua. "Um, nice performance. You said... ghosts?"

She nodded, "Hungry ghosts of the unhonored dead. That strange fire's not the only thing that's gone wrong with that dead ambassador. The ghosts'll twist these people's mind. And I'm not goin' to be able to do anything against any big bit of it. They'er everywhere. And with them come those meddlin' spirits." She wearily gestured up in the air at another thing that only she could see.

But Xiaobao caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. A great purple bird fringed with glowing gold silently soared through the night, just brushing the tile roofs above them, a living shadow in transit. He could see clouds and stars through its transparent wings. It was a spirit. Was this what Ayika could see all the time? It was beautiful, and it was terrifying. Then the spirit bird vanished behind a chimney and a chorus of screams rose up from the street below there. Mua saw Xiaobao's expression and her eyes widened, as she added together his fearful wonder and the nearby sounds of panic.

Ma'er crossed his arms and sighed wearily. "Masks smashing bodies, ghosts twisting minds, and visible spirits provoking panic in the public by their mere presence. Holding order here will be impossible."

Xiaobao agreed. "Yeah, but we're still going to try. Zhangyi! We're going to need a new plan!"

...


	61. Charge

...

When Ayika was a little girl she'd spent a lot of time with her Grandma Aka. After the family moved down south to Ba Sing Se, Aka had quickly established herself as the spiritual authority in the Bed. Being a recent immigrant didn't harm your community standing when most people around you had arrived even more recently. Uprooted and plunged down into a far distant land in self-imposed economic exile, many of the Bed residents clung to the little things that reminded them of their home. In this case it was a grumpy, grey haired woman puffing on a curved bone pipe sized for a man twice her height; a woman who knew the spirits of sea and mountain, and all the old stories that defined them.

Aka might have resented her son's decision to move his new wife away from the north after the war but when Ayika was little she hadn't noticed. All she saw was that her grandmother knew everything. When someone was feeling sick she knew which spirits were bothering them. When people were fighting she knew how to chant and dispel the bad magic of an unbalanced spirit world. She even knew what to do when people died; how to clean their bodies, calm their ghosts, honor their spirits, and comfort their families. And after all that she still knew to tell plenty of stories about spirits and heroes to the little girl sitting at the foot of her grandmother's rocking chair.

Grandma Aka hadn't believed in only nice stories for children. In fact, with retrospect, Ayika figured that Aka had found a lot of entertainment in how much terror she could bring her granddaughter without the child finally breaking to run away to hide in the corner sobbing. Aka had made a lot of noise about it being bad for a woman of the Tribes to be born in this foreign land far from her own culture, but she still spent the time with Ayika and beyond any cultural pride, Aka had been practical. She taught about the old country, but she also told Ayika the stories of this infinite city that was now their home.

She'd told of Blind Dog Lord the who could steal your breath and ruled over the local spirit court, she had told of the demon dogs, of the chained and split Kuang river spirit, of golden toads, and of the Nine-Step-Shadow of death. When knowledge remembered from the north or gleaned from the city failed her then she had told stories of pure invention. To this day Ayika was still uncertain which were which. She had never heard of another person speak of the terrifying Scissors-Man who had haunted her childhood dreams, but then again she had not mentioned that phantom to any living soul.

There were enough real things to be afraid of. For example, a tormented spirit world wounded by the Fire Sage's perverse ritual which was now spilling forth the hungry ghosts of the unhonored dead.

Ayika stood alone on a deserted Exclusion street outside the Miohuito mansion, some little distance away from the Fire Temple. Mizumi would return shortly. Until then, Ayika only had to withstand this terrible unearthly wavering of the world around her. Huitzlan's curse lay across the city and the twisted wisps of hungry ghosts were rising up from between the paving stones.

Ayika turned her head away from a grey spectral shape that bulged and stretched as it struggled into this material world. It was a horrifying yet pitiful sight. The transparent thing swayed and undulated with each bulge of effort in its struggle to cross over. Now thick tendrils began to separate off it, strange appendages echoing a fading memory of arms. Then it turned towards Ayika. The ancient ghost no longer had a human face, only a twisted spiral in the general proportions that might have been relative to a head. A single transparent tendril reached out from its side in a wavering path towards Ayika.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Ayika planted her feet on the paving stones and then stared back at the eyeless thing with all the force she could muster within her. The ghost halted. This hungry thing was not at fault, without connection to its soul it had slowly lost all its memories other than a vague sense that things should be other than they were. It was this need that led to them reach out and grasp at this world, withering grass, causing illness, and twisting temperaments. It was not their fault.

Still standing firm, Ayika lifted up bottom of her borrowed dress to reach a hand to the little purse she'd tied to hang down from around her waist. Then she straightened up and copper coins clinked softly in her hand along with a single piece of straw. She reached out her foot to mark a line on the dusty stones and the ghost swayed back slightly. Ritual rang loud to all things that resided in the spirit world, you just had to mean it. Ayika slid the coins back and forth between her two hands as she began to speak in a clear, calm voice, her own true emotions hidden well. She had its attention. Then she tossed her hands out, one after another, counting loudly the money that was cast out to the honor of this lost being. The hungry ghost leaned forward slightly and its tendrils arched nearer to her, but then it turned and began to move away, fading slightly as it searched for the coins that had been given to it. Then Ayika snapped the pice of brittle straw and the ghost vanished.

She let out a heavy breath of relief.

"Wow," Mizumi's voice came from right behind her and Ayika jumped in fright. Mizumi quickly apologized.

"I am sorry. What was it that you did? It looked like it was a ritual of some sort?"

Ayika gestured out to the departed specter Mizumi apparently still couldn't see. "Well, not a real...I kind of just made it... there was a hungry ghost here. It won't be the only one. Huitlzan's ritual messed up more than I could've imagined."

Ayika turned back to Mizumi, who stood there, slightly disheveled and limping from having just climbed in and out of a third floor window to her mansion home. They'd come back here to retrieve Naruhama's Fire Nation funeral artifact that Golden Toad had given them. Ayika decided to gloss over for now telling Mizumi that she had no idea what to do with that ritual object even if they had it. Ayika gave a questioning look and Mizumi patted a pocket of the short black coat she was now wearing, signaling success of her mission. Then she winced, still pained by the burns Huitzlan had given her arm and leg.

But even more than her wounds, Mizumi was unsettled at the mention of hungry ghosts. However, she still continued, "Lili and Xinfei are not in my house. I do not know where they went. I think back out of the Exclusion." She tilted her head back and took a deep breath to quiet her heart that must have been pounding from stress, pain, and exhaustion. But distraction was good medicine so she cocked her head inquisitively at Ayika. "You counted fairly high when you flung those coins. Where were you carrying that much money?"

Ayika was confused. "What?" Then she realized what Mizumi was talking about. "Oh. Oh! No, no, that wasn't..." Ayika opened her hand to reveal all six copper coins still held within. "Ghosts don't need actual money. What're they going to buy? It's the story that's important; the ritual. And even so I'm a bit surprised that worked. Grandma Aka always said that ghosts and spirits prefer their own kind, their own culture, and that one's form was very faded. They'd have died long before there were people of the Tribes here in Ba Sing Se. I didn't expect it to recognize me." She hiked her dress back up over her thigh to put the small coins back in her purse and despite everything still smiled when Mizumi awkwardly averted her eyes. It was her own fault for giving Ayika a dress without anywhere to carry things.

Mizumi coughed and said, "Right. Now we have the burning mirror. If you can complete the funeral ritual properly with it and we might stop the ghost god. As Teacher Lizhen tried to do before. But how are we going to find the funeral mask? Sage Hutizlan, curse his blood, gave no indication that anyone in his plot had ever recovered it."

"Then Ma'er's guy Tian still has it. But Gold Toad said he hid him." Ayika curled her hand into a fist. Her fingernails bit into her palm. "The spirits have all gone crazy how, but maybe we can find Gold Toad again, or maybe Ma'er knows something that might help. It's our only chance now that...its our only chance."

Mizumi nodded, shuddering as she glanced back in the direction of the Fire Temple. "Ma'er and Mama Mua were fighting the Masks at the theater. Or perhaps they are continuing to assist you friend Xiaobao's black forehead-band people. That might be the best place to begin a search and it is near the Frog well."

The two of them hurried down the empty main street of the Exclusion. The district's city-born workers had all been expelled and the residents were all inside their houses and apartments, barred against the turmoil of violence that had erupted beyond the bounds of their artificial island. Ayika couldn't blame them. For a mad priest like Huitzlan an abstract goal of spiritual dominance might have been worth this chaos but most of the Islanders here were just mundane men and women. They wanted to make money, live their lives, and keep their families safe. In a strange contrast to the eerie emptiness of the deserted canyon-streets the Exclusion's gas lamps still burned cheerful and bright, banishing the night to the tips of the red and black roofed towers above. But Ayika could still feel the wound in the world, throbbing behind the air.

They were approaching the Bridge of Fire that marked the edge of the Exclusion. Ayika saw the grey shadows of more hungry ghosts rising up into this world to drift across the surface of the empty water in the surrounding moat. She shuddered.

They were almost half way across the bridge before the Fire Nation marines posted there notice them and began to call out in their language. Mizumi snapped something back and pressed forward despite the shouted commands that even Ayika could interpret well enough. Ayika didn't know what the plan was, it was possible Mizumi intended to personally fight her way through the all soldiers and then the city guards on the other side. However, it didn't come to that.

There was a loud crash off to the right, down the long canal that was this side of the Exclusion's moat. The girls and the marines both spun around in time to see half of an entire carriage fly through the air to impact the second story of a building. Shouts and screams drifted over the water and then they were followed by a keening, inhuman roar that carried with it the notes of ancient grudges against all the material world. Something else landed out of the dark night onto the flotilla of tethered boats in the canal, capsizing one and setting the rest rocking to spill their cargo of casks forth into the water. The fallen meteor rose then up to show a vague human silhouette that glowed a sinister red. The Masks were doing their work.

One of the Fire Nation marines spat out a word that Ayika recognized from some of Mizumi's angrier moments. Down at the end of the Bridge of Fire the small group of local city guards posted there had a moment of silent unanimity and then proceeded to run in the direction opposite the Masks. The Fire Nation marines yelled at each other and ran forward to seize control of the bridge mouth as some more of them sprinted past to dash along the canal street in an attempt to drive back the Mask that was rampaging up there. Ayika and Mizumi no longer ranked as their chief concerns. The two women managed to slide by and get off the bridge to run off into the town.

Just before they rounded a corner, Ayika turned to look back. The man-shaped thing rose up from the shattered canopy of one of the canal boats, glowing red with transparent spines and claws. All around him floated a flock of bobbing half-smashed barrels that had been knocked free from other boats onto the water burbled forth their liquid contents. The Fire Nation marines dashed to close the last of the distance and punched out, jets of magical fire blinking into existence from their fists. Ayika just had time to recognize that the oily reflections on the water surface when there was a loud distant thoomp and crash and a flash of fire. Then the other lamp oil barrels exploded as the now burning oil on the surface of the water spread while the marines and the Mask clashed, neither side carrying much for the survival of the buildings around them.

...

Gold Toad's well had been empty and silent, but Ayika and Mizumi found Xiaobao and Ma'er more easily than they'd expected. In fact, they found everyone; Lili and Xinfei had joined Mua in the ad hoc command center Zhangyi and Jiang had helped the Black Bands set up. The fledgling organization was doing its best to maintain order, ensuring that the government guards were fighting the Masks and not pushing down the Kuang residents, but things were bad. The chaos was spreading in fingers along the canals, like the twisted spiritual power was somehow water soluble. Or perhaps the Masks just liked open spaces to pounce and leap across.

Even this little distance from the Exclusion Ayika could already tell that the hungry ghosts and spirit appearances were growing denser. From what Xiaobao said he'd heard about the rest of Kuang Harbor, that trend likely continued all the way to the Lower Ring or wherever Tian was hiding with Naruhama's ghost mask. The power that fueled all this was flowing from that thing, so it had to be at the center of the trouble. Well, that meant Ayika finally had a way to track Tian down. However, those concealing warrens were on the far side of a large group of rampaging Masks, a terrified town, an equally terrified guard regiment, and the great city wall of Ba Sing Se.

"We need to get into the Lower Ring. Naruhama's mask has to be at the center of these rising ghosts and we need to find it. Completing the funeral's our only chance now of healing the spirit world." Ayika turned to Nia Mua who was half sitting half leaning on the edge of a low wall, resting from administering a bit of magical water healing to Mizumi's burns that had left them improved but still raw. "Could you get us under the wall again?"

Mizumi was not excited about this plan and sputtered, "No, no, not, absolutely not. Not again."

Mua clucked dismissively at Mizumi. "Calm yourself, girl. It's not goin' to happen anyway. The greenies, the guards, have got a big push they're makin' out from the Craftsman's Gate. We'd never get to my house or boat and we'd certainly never get to the source-spring tunnels. And the wild spirits seem thickest on the water anyway for some reason."

Zhangyi wondered, "Is it possible that Mister Ma'er could gain us passage-"

The ex Dai-Li agent shook his head curtly. "There is no way I could get us through the main gate if that's what you are asking. Whatever you people seem to think, I have no governmental authority and haven't in a very long time. I would be arrested as quickly as any of you."

Ayika clapped her hands. "Right, so if it's our only chance, then we need to find a way to get Mua past the guard patrols to the water tunnels that go under the wall. I'm sorry Mizumi but we need to get in there to find Tian."

Lili stopped her nervous pacing for a moment. "Well, I can't say I'm any happier about the prospect of drowning and...Mizumi, what are you looking at?"

Mizumi had been twisting around, searching for anything that might offer a counter proposal to fighting their way through soldiers so they could smother themselves in an airless tunnel under the wall. Her eyes had landed on that section of the elevated tram track above the town rooftops out of pure nostalgia for simpler solutions in earlier days. Then the corners of her mouth twitched up.

"Mister Ma'er, how well secured are the tram traverse tunnels at times like this?"

Ma'er raised a greying eyebrow. "Not as well as the main body of the gate, but that's because every tram station is already under government watch and the soldiers posted in those wall tunnels could easily stop anyone trying to walk along the tracks."

Xinfei made a noise of sudden inhalation and abrupt realization about what Mizumi intended. Ayika twisted around to look at him and he was staring at Mizumi with disbelief and amazement. Now Mizumi was actually grinning.

"Oh, I was not thinking about walking."

...

Mizumi's father, Tetzamatl Miohuito, was an importer of many products but his speciality was machines. And of all those machines, he had staked his hopes on trains, on convincing the King of Kings to convert the earthbender powered tram network that connected and fed the unmanageably vast city into a machine powered system. He'd met with a lot of resistance but in the wake of the sympathy for the attack on his train-yard he'd finally managed to arrange governmental permission for a practical demonstration. That had been two days ago, so there was currently a Fire Nation built locomotive engine sitting on the elevated track of the tram maintenance garage near the line terminus station at the customs building.

"Well, this is insane. Ya want to steal the machine."

Xinfei had to agree with Mua's assessment. Their small group was standing beside that large hulk of black metal painted with stripes of red. It bristled with pipes and levers and wheels in wheels. Mizumi had climbed aboard and lit the onboard coal furnace quickly enough, but apparently now they had to wait for things to heat fully. Beside him, Lili was starting to twitch and fidget with nervous energy. Such unsettledness was contagious and after a brief moment of silently waiting for 'pressure to build', Xinfei decided he'd stood enough and scrambled up the monstrosity to squeeze inside the command cabin with Mizumi. He squatted down on his heels beside her, staring at the fiery furnace mouth set at the end of the little chamber. The whole space was filled with dials and wheels and things you were meant to spin and things that would explode if you touched them.

After a number of seconds he leaned over to Mizumi and said, "You have no idea what to do next, do you?"

"Not at all. My science textbook showed the engine when it was not incorporated into the locomotive."

"But doesn't your dad make these? Shouldn't you-"

"Yes, Xinfei, it has become painfully clear that I should have done quite a few things in my life very differently. Thank you for that observation."

He saw her twist to look out at the rest of the group waiting outside and at Ayika's proud, confident face. Xinfei sighed.

"Well, let's try and figure this out."

As he got up and moved forward Mizumi opened her mouth to say something about being careful because this was a very complicated and expensive piece of machinery. Fortunately, she caught herself and swallowed whatever that comment was before he had time to do more than narrow his eyes back at her.

Xinfei cast his gaze over the walls housing all the pipes and valves. There were little engraved plaques screwed onto the metal here and there. "Hey, there's instructions!"

"You can read-?"

"Of course I can read you high nosed little-!"

"No! I meant that I had thought such things would be written in the Nation's language! But then again, this is the demonstration car. I suppose father left nothing to chance for operator error."

They both leaned over to look at the little metal plates which has been screwed onto the walls near various contraptions. There were indeed instructions engraved there, though Xinfei may have exaggerated just how much he could read it. There were several characters he'd never even seen before. Judging from the radicals, one pair seemed to have something to do with water and, in context...stopping motion? He heard Mizumi mutter something in a questioning tone. That was not a very good sign.

There was a little hinged arm in the center of a circle in a prominent place. The arm was slowly moving and pointing to tiny lines labeled with numbers. Above several of the numbers it was labeled simply, "Good."

Xinfei scratched at his head. "Good?", he read.

"Really? Great!" Ayika called up from down below. "Guys, they've got it working. Everyone up!"

The cabin got crowded very quickly as the rest of their strange party climbed in. Xinfei was about to correct them all when he noticed that one person was still down beside the tracks. He looked down at Xiaobao with a sinking heart.

"Maolin, what are you doing? Get up here!" In his rising panic, Xinfei completely forgot that he hadn't actually wanted any of them in the train yet.

Xiaobao just hung his head as if that simple black band weighed as much as the city wall. "No, I don't think I can. I think I have to stay here. All these people out in the town...I don't know what I can do but I have to do something. They trusted me, so I have to try."

Lili opened her mouth as if to say something but Ayika silenced her. Xinfei just stared at his brother with disbelief. "But...We're going straight into the middle of everything. The Masks and the guards and the spirits and...We need you! You're supposed to be the one holding this together! Protecting people. You know I can't do anything like this by myself!"

Xiaobao now moved forward and stepped up onto one of train's metal flanges to half hang off the engine. He squeezed Xinfei's arm. "Xinfei," he said. "Shut up. We both know you're twice as smart as I am, and besides Ayika's clearly the one in charge. You've got this. I know you do. And hey, what did Kuang Harbor ever do to us that we can leave them with just Zhangyi and Jiang? The whole place'll be destroyed in five minutes!"

Xinfei laughed and felt sick as he did. "Damn you, freaking lunk. Ok, fine. But don't you dare be a damn hero! I want you to be the biggest coward this city's ever seen. Jump in a canal if you even see a Mask's shadow!"

"Me, the hero?" Xiaobao grinned as he stepped back down. "You're the one who's ridding off with the all pretty girls on a quest to save the kingdom from monsters." He stuck his hand in his pocket for a moment and then pulled out a long strip of black cloth. He held it out towards Xinfei with a smile. "Dad'd be proud."

Then Xiaobao almost fell backwards as Ayika flung herself out of the train cabin to wrap him in a furious hug. There were tears on her cheeks as she hung off his shoulders. "You damn giant idiots, both of you. We don't have time for this." Then she dropped down to the ground. "Keep my folks safe too."

Xiaobao nodded and Ayika climbed back up, aided by Mizumi's helping hand. Xinfei's throat felt sore as he looked down at his bother stepping back away from the tracks. But Xiaobao was right, they had a mission. So Xinfei turned away. Then he grabbed the headband and yanked the knot tight behind his head. Yes, the Bao name still meant something.

Now pressed up against the side of the train cabin and separated from whatever Mizumi was doing with her dials, Xinfei mumbled, "Um, right. Well, the furnace runs on coal so we need to keep that fed. Er, someone, could you...Oh." Ma'er flicked his hand and a large heap of coal magically sailed through the air from the rear hopper into the furnace.

"Right, uh, you take care of that." Xinfei looked over. Mizumi had her hand on an important looking lever with an expression of about eighty-five percent confidence. The little metal pointer was now starting to leave "Good" on the other side. Xinfei grabbed a long pole that disappeared down into the floor and pulled it backwards. The label said, "disengage before motion something start" so that seemed to be a safe bet.

"Right, Mizumi, whenever you're ready." Ayika clearly had complete faith in her foreign friend. Mua looked resigned to immediate fiery death, and Ma'er never had any emotion on his face. However, Xinfei caught a glimpse of Lili and she was unabashedly impressed with his command of this huge machine. Confidence welling in his chest, he twisted one last knob and announced:

"All right, start it!"

The engine jerked and made a lot of very unpleasant noises that sounded very expensive to fix. Xinfei twisted a lot more things and slammed a few more levers until, after several heart pounding seconds, the metal pointer stopped its plummeting fall out of "Good". The train shook again and then began to chug with the impression of forward and backward motion as it started to slowly creep along the track.

Mizumi tried to covertly dab the sweat off her forehead that showed she was the only one who knew exactly what those noises had signified. Lili nodded in approval, raising her voice to be heard over the building metallic din. "Not bad. Loud though! And it's not exactly fast but...oh, it's still getting faster." The train gave another rumble and she stumbled forward as the machine continued to accelerate, catching her hand on Xinfei's hunched shoulder for support.

Xiaobao waved from behind them but Xinfei couldn't bare to look back. The metal mechanical tram pulled out of the service building and slowly merged back onto the main elevated track. Its earthbender powered counterpart would have been three blocks ahead by now and perhaps still gaining distance but there was something disconcerting about the constant, relentless acceleration of the steam engine. Ma'er continued to transfer coal from hopper to furnace and with each blast of heat the machine seemed to gain a little more purpose. This thing was a lump of metal the weight of a house barreling along in response to Xinfei's command. Well, Mizumi's command since she had possession of the important brass lever but that wasn't the point. Xinfei straightened up and despite everything couldn't help a strange grin creeping onto his face. Carefully, he pushed past everyone and leaned out the entrance door to the cabin. He could see the roofs of Kuang Harbor passing beneath him while the building wind whipped through his hair.

White smoke billowed out of the chimney on top of the engine, stretching out behind them as the train pushed onward into the night. From up here Xinfei could see the growing chaos spreading out across the town front of him. Dots of smoke and flickering light showed several fires across from the riverside wharfs to the border of the surrounding farms. Even over the deafening chugging of the engine and the rattle of the metal wheels he could hear a few fire bells resolutely pealing out for help. In defiance of logic it looked like the fires were following the path of the canals that reached down from the city wall. In the streets below, clashing crowds of angry people looked up, their conflict frozen in a moment of confused amazement as something loud and new passed over the roofs of their houses, charging away down the stone vaulted trackway towards the growing mass of the city wall.

Suddenly, someone else was hanging off of Xinfei with her arm around his shoulders and another hand on the doorframe. It was Lili, still pretty even covered with soot as she leaned out dangerously far over the edge of the track.

"Look at it! We're still going faster!" She burst out into exhilarated laugher.

Ayika grabbed them both and hauled them safely back inside. She said, "That's good I guess. But what happens when we reach the wall?"

They all turned to look at Ma'er who simply said, "I don't know. This isn't a scenario gate troops have in their manual."

Mizumi had peaked her own head out one of the little forward windows and said, "Well, we will find out soon! We are growing near!"

Ayika was standing by her side but it now looked as if there were a few cracks in her confidence in the Islander woman. She spoke, almost yelling to be heard. "Are we still gaining speed? Should we hold off a bit? I can't imagine this thing stops quickly!"

Mizumi shook her head. "That speed is going to be what makes sure the soldiers cannot board us!"

"Yeah, but what if they just earthbend up a bunch of stones and seal the tunnel in front of us? Make it a solid wall?"

"We just...!" Mizumi stopped. There was a brief pause. "I...I had not considered that possibility!"

Mua muttered something unintelligible under the roar of the train as she gripped tighter onto her ad hoc seat.

In the Kuang Harbor tram tunnel guard station, a man leaned back in his chair. The soldiers whose job it was to guard this place knew that bad things were happening tonight. However, they also regarded the distant sounds of shouting and fire below them as something to be dealt with by soldiers who'd drawn less fortunate posting assignments. After all, on a night like this the only people with the authority to use the tram tracks would be government agents who lowly soldiers were not to question or hinder in any way, so it wasn't like they'd actually have to do anything tonight. And so, though they had heard the distant metal chugging sound, their discussion had been one of idle curiosity and a joint resolution to ask someone at the next shift change if they knew exactly what had been going on out in the harbor.

When one of the more astute guards noticed that there was something up on the tracks, it took him a few moments to gather up his fellows to come up and look at it and offer their opinions. What they discovered was that the thing on the tracks was quite larger than it had been a moment ago, and it growing distressing nearer by the second. The rails on the stone-walled vaulted track and in the tunnel were now both giving off a disconcerting murmuring sound of deep vibration. There was no protocol for this. Then the thing was upon them, roaring out of the dark night and spewing smoke; a massive black and red monstrosity louder than an army. The earthbending soldiers defaulted to their training in a panic and punched out with earth magic to halt the the train as they would a stone based tram but it shrugged off their techniques with absolutely no effect.

The train shot into the tunnel at an incredible speed and for a moment the soldiers were rendered insensible by the rumbling and screeching and smoke. Somewhere amid the din one of them thought he heard a girl's voice calling out the explanation for their failure.

"Sorry! It is made of metal!"

The soldier thought that the voice was being unnecessarily cheeky about the whole affair.

...


	62. Heroes

...

The train engine burst out of the wall into the vast belt of the Lower Ring and the first thing they noticed was the smell of smoke. Mizumi's initial thought was that something had gone wrong in the train and she was in the process of inspecting all the dials but then Ayika's hand started plucking at her shoulder. Mizumi straightened up and looked outside the cabin. Then she gasped. In every direction across the fifteen kilometer wide belt of roofs and streets there were speckles of flickering orange light and billowing smoke. The ring was on fire.

However, they were now approaching the first station and Xinfei lunged past Mizumi for the breaks leaver because he had no idea how long it took for a hulking machine like this train to stop once it had been told to consider it. As it turned out he'd given the invention too little credit and after accidentally venting most of the steam pressure the machine rumbled and screeched to a near complete halt. When they were finally rolled to a rest Mizumi had no choice but to tell the rest of their passengers that they would be walking along the last fifty meters of track.

They were a strange group which arrived in the station without a vehicle. Xinfei hopped up onto the platform to extend a hand down for Lili and Ayika after him. Muzumi jumped up beside Ma'er in her own despite the pain from her burned leg and Mua very pointedly ignored Ma'er's offered hand. She saw to her own labored ascension but as she clambered up to her feet she gestured her head to the other side of the open station floor.

"We've got company."

A small gaggle of truncheon-armed government station guards were nervously advancing out of their little administrative kiosk. They made slow progress forward as they moved by a circulating convection of each man trying to push the other three in front of him, none of them wanting to be leading a confrontation on this chaotic night.

The guard who lost the battle to avoid the focal location called out. "Hey! You can't be up here on...Um, what even is that?" He pointed off at the stalled, smoking, hulk of the steam train now come to rest on the elevated track like a fat bird on a wash-line.

Mua and Ma'er both sighed and raised their hands preparation for bending. Mizumi saw Xinfei wince at what was about to happen. Then a crisp, high-class voice called out to her side.

"Honored public servants, this is not a party you want to hinder."

Lili strode forward, wielding every stretched centimeter of her already quite noticeable height. "I know that you are doing your jobs but I have here with me two skilled spirit priests and a Public Safety officer who are all hurrying to resolve the crisis which has enveloped our city. I am sure you must have noticed that this ring's gone mad?" Something about Lili's inflection managed to project wealth and power in a way which made even Mizumi feel the rips and soot stains on her dress.

However, the guards still hesitated. As grateful as they were for any mention of a forthcoming supernatural resolution they might have noticed that Lili's explanation didn't extend to Mizumi or Xinfei, or indeed to to Lili herself. Mizumi found her back tensing as she feared that these men might actually attack. Then Xinfei sighed. He walked forward and grabbed Lili's arm, holding out his palm. Lili stared at him for a moment in confusion before starting with sudden realization. She reached into some hidden pocket in her dress and pulled out some well-folded sheets of paper money. Xinfei whipped off two and moved over to the station guards.

"Sorry government boys, just remembered we forgot to pay tax this year. All right, we'll just be heading down then?"

It was not the smoothest delivery ever given, but the nearest guard grabbed the bills and nodded, now all relieved smiles. Bribery was a situation they knew how to deal with. "Right. Civilians aren't allowed to loiter around up here tonight. Get along on your way."

"Much obliged."

Mizumi and her friends made their way down the broad stone stairs from the tram station to street level. Lili was looking at Xinfei with appreciation and Xinfei was looking as if he regretted all his involvement in this mounting fiasco. With that black headband on, the resemblance between him and his brother was even more obvious. He looked strong.

Mizumi had been relieved to see that the open square at the foot of the tram station was empty, though the sound and screams of conflict drifted over from neighboring streets. Ayika and Mama Mua were staring at something else, something invisible in the city around them. If Kuang Harbor was a predictive indicator, then the city guards had pushed outwards from here in their attempt to restore order thus explaining the eerie emptiness. Yet that theory did not match well with the looks of astonishment and fear that both tribal women now wore.

Ayika moved in close beside Mizumi. The shaman-in-training murmured as she stared out at the deserted space walled with tall stacks of shops, restaurants and apartments. "There are so many."

Lili managed to catch ear of what Ayika'd said as she came up behind. "So many what? Spirits?" She looked around anxiously.

Mua broke in, shaking her head. "If it was spirits, by now even you'd see them. No, ghosts. The dead are rising thickly here."

"The Masks must be here as well. That is the only thing which could explain this breakdown of order," Ma'er added. "All the guard stations visible from the tram had their warning lights lit. I suspect Inspector Yang has been very busy here."

"Well, we should hope so, else your Public Safety friend let Tailang get killed and the Harbor be torn apart for absolutely no reason." Xinfei's tone made it clear he thought that Public Safety would easily have done just that.

However, Mizumi verbally pushed past him. "That is in the past. Now we must hurry to locate Assistant Gardener Tian and complete the ritual for the ghost mask of Ambassador Naruhama. Ayika, Mama Mua, which direction is the correct way to go?" She knew that if they stopped and gave time to consider the insane magnitude of what they were attempting here they might just freeze. She knew that she would.

Fortunately, after a short argued conversation about things only they could see, Ayika and Mua agreed on a direction towards the middle of the ring, south of the radial tram line and over a wide canal which cut its way down to the city wall. Apparently, the twisted shadows of the hungry ghosts looked denser that way. Unfortunately, in that direction lay what looked like a war-zone of fire, government forces, panicked civilians, and rampaging masks, all their minds twisted towards madness by the encroachment of the spirit world.

Mizumi looked to her side and met Ayika's eyes. They stood together under the roof of dark cloud-cover that glowed orange with the reflected light of scattered flames across the district. No one had given them this task. No one would ever trust them with this task. They could leave and be safe.

But they would not.

Together, that group of unlooked-for people strode forward into the burning city.

...

Xinfei had to assume that Ayika and Mama Mua knew where they were going. As their group of would-be saviors hurried through the dark and smoky streets those two women would stop from time to time to perform whatever dousing or divining allowed them to notice an increasing spiritual disruption. Mostly it looked like arguing. Under the best of conditions the Lower Ring was a confusing tangle of buildings, but if Xinfei could judge from the few glimpses he'd caught of the ring walls high above they were at least moving in a consistent direction. The strategy to find the ghost mask by finding the center of the crisis was a good plan in theory. In practice however, it meant rushing towards the epicenter of fire and chaos.

Nearly everyone in the Lower Ring wanted to be inside tonight, their doors locked and barred against what was going on outside, so the streets were mostly empty. However, disorder had swept though so many quarters and the people living there now had no place to stay that possessed even the illusion of safety. As Xinfei's group advanced through the smoky streets they met more of these fearful refugees.

Then, after turning a corner, they came face to face with a conflict ready to explode. Ahead, at a wide five-way intersection where the buildings dripping with hanging banners in large block characters for shops and services, there was a standoff between a large detachment of city guards and a much larger number of the public. Many of the guards already held their short-swords in their hands, bare blades shining dully in the yellow lantern light. On the other side of the intersection were the local residents, caught in the middle of piling up barricades across the streets. The two crowds had the look of having just pulled back from a brief clash.

The guard captain yelled out, "Return to your homes at once! You are interfering with government forces! Nothing will be solved if the authorities can't get to the source of the trouble!"

"Solve it?! Like you solved Butcher's Quarter an hour back? You Greenies raised the blocks and locked those people inside! Now the whole place is on fire; none of the fire crews could get through to help them!"

"There was arson that-"

"Of course there was arson, because you guard bastards have been pushing people to it! Crashing down like a hammer while the Middle Ring rich folks come down here to tear the place up because they're angry about the Islanders! Well, we've had enough!"

In their side street off the intersection, Ma'er gathered Xinfei and the others closer to him. "We'll go around. Getting involved in this dispute could only burn through time we don't have. Particularly if the hungry ghosts are influencing people's minds as she says." He nodded in Mua's direction.

The others reluctantly shrugged at the sense in this. Lili in particularly nodded so energetically that her head looked ready to fall off. Xinfei knew the smart answer but for some reason he felt a pit in his stomach. One of the citizens up ahead was wearing what looked like a black headband. It was possible that cooler heads could prevail here without bloodshed, but inside Xinfei doubted it. Even discounting whatever Ayika said the ghosts and spirits were doing, people were too crazy to be trusted. He tilted his head back in frustration and then saw something that confirmed his doubt. Little colored shadows flitting across the tiles three stories above them, heading towards the intersection. They looked like glowing animals of pale green.

"Hey Mua, didn't you say that emotion could draw spirits?"

Mua didn't bother answering, she just followed his gaze up to the rooftops and cursed. They were small spirits, looking a little like elongated rabbits made entirely of chopsticks, and they were advancing eagerly towards the two crowds.

Ayika looked equally pained by internal conflict but she reached a decision. She turned away. "He's right, we don't have time. If we can find Naruhama's mask then this all might be over. We have to go now." As always, Mizumi nodded in agreement and they started moving.

Then screams rose up from the intersection. Xiaobao whipped around to see a guard scrabbling at his back where a pale green spirit now gripped on. More were hopping down and darting among the crowd. The guard shouted as he tried to rip the glowing stick rabbit off but either the spirit dodged every attempt or the panicked man's hands passed right through it. Then the guard suddenly went limp and then drew his sword, seemingly terrified and not recognizing his fellow guards around him.

The man's commander yelled out, "Zhang! Drop your weapon!" However, Zhang was swinging his sword wildly at the other guards and everyone around him. The captain swore and gestured at his men to circle around. "We'll get that thing off you!"

Zhang just screamed in reply. He dashed into the middle of his intersection, is trembling sword-point alternately pointing at the civilians and the guards while on his back the bundle of green glowing sticks poked phasing etherial limbs through his body. He was starting to move like the possessed Masks. Members of both crowds were screaming and many of those shouts called for killing the guard before he could kill them. Accusations and superstitions were flying.

Xinfei groaned. "They're all going to die."

Then he felt Lili press against his back in fear and the sinking feeling got worse. Because he realized what he was was about to do.

The maddened guard lunged forward, slashing wildly with his sword as the little spirit played with his head and the suddenly Xinfei was on him. He honestly didn't know when he'd started running, he'd seen the bloodshed that was about to come, he'd heard Lili gasp, and then he was tackling the man. Fortunately, the little spirit seemed to be just as startled and it leaped off the man's head to skitter down into the street's drainage channel. That left Xinfei wrestling with a very confused but no longer violent city guard in the space between two large and fearsome groups of people.

Someone called out from the citizen barricades, "Hey! That guy's wearing the black headband! I've seen them out in Kuang Harbor! They're the working men!"

Another man joined in. "Yeah! He's standing up to the guards and their spirits!"

Both factions were moving closer together now. Xinfei stood in the middle and knew that he was same idiot he always yelled at his brother for being. It seemed heroism was a fatal defect in the Bao family line. At least the others could keep on with the actual mission. Maybe that would be enough.

Then a sharp, high pitched voice rang out. "Everybody stop!"

Xinfei turned with exasperated disbelief to see Lili Gaoli skidding to a halt next to him in her smoke-stained green dress. She stamped her foot on the paving stones like this entire riot around her was a disagreement over seats at an afternoon lunch. "This is ridiculous! Everyone calm down right now and be sensible! This is Ba Sing Se; spirits and ghosts cannot be allowed to make us act like animals!"

A frozen hush descended over the entire intersection. However, as much as Xinfei admired Lili's ill-considered zeal, he couldn't exactly give her credit for that.

The Masks had arrived.

From the first screams it took a while for most of the gathered mob to notice. Then they too saw the four human shaped silhouettes crouched up on the tile roof of an apartment building. Then the light of the lamps below washed up the facade and tiles to reveal the shadows of wings and tentacles and spikes rising off their backs.

The city guards screamed just as much as the civilians and the Masks joined in the cacophony with a metallic cough that may have been laughter. Then one of them seemed to grow bored and with a single careless gesture ripped loose an entire cross-beam from the roof on which it stood. The Mask twirled the massive beam in one hand for a moment before it turned and hurled the trunk down into the crowd. Five people vanished under the impact and then the Masks dropped down among them, ready to find their own amusement in these fragile humans.

The intersection exploded into chaos. People screamed and ran in every direction, succeeding only in colliding. There were some stalwart souls from the barricades who rushed forward to muster a defense and there were uniformed guards who sprinted off to flee over those barriers they'd been ordered to tear down. Xinfei tried to plant himself against the buffeting human turmoil.

"Lili! We've got to get-!

He was interrupted by a man in a mask falling from the sky, wrapped in shadows of yellow leaves and a transparent crown of branches. The thing introduced itself by grabbing a guard who'd turned to run and lifting him carelessly into the air. The Mask tilted its head as it looked curiously at the screaming human it held. It grabbed his arm in glowing claws. Then came the snap.

The Mask stamped its foot and screeched with pleasure like the groan of a forest tree slowly falling. It tossed the screaming man away and spread its hands like fangs. Those burning yellow eyes were looking at Xinfei and Lili. Then a jet of water smashed into its head as a another stream slammed into its feet, sending it flipping and spinning.

Xinfei spun to see Mua preparing for her next strike.

"Boy," she growled. "You and her are the stupidest thing I've ever run into. But then again, second place is me so I'm stuck here too. Let's smash these damn things."

She gathered up her floating whips of water for another attack against the recovering Mask but a brick went flying by over her shoulder to smack the possessed man in the head, followed by another flurry of projectiles thrown by both earthbending and simple human arms. The people were fighting back. They hadn't yet seen what Xinfei knew in his stomach. It wasn't enough.

...


	63. Hold

...

The muscles in Xiaobao's arms strained as he lifted up a wooden beam that lay through the strewn debris field of scattered bricks. Then he grunted and something in the partially collapsed house shifted, making the broken rafter slightly easier to hold. One last heave allowed him to transfer this end of the beam up onto his shoulders. If any of them survived the night, the construction business in Kuang Harbor was going to be booming. Shouts and screams echoed in the distance.

"There you go," he said. "Grab stuff quick."

The woman beside him dropped down and crawled over the clacking pile of fallen bricks, desperately sifting through the shattered remains of a wooden chest for what clothes and items she could salvage. "Spirits bless you! Thank you so much! This is all I have in the world and I was sure I was going to be penniless on the street and-"

"It's ok, really," Xiaobao said through gritted teeth. This beam was biting into the flesh of his neck. "Just...quick."

A few last bricks were thrown aside and then she hopped back. "All right, done."

Xiaobao breathed in and out, then shoved the beam back off his shoulders and let it fall. The loud crash rang out in the night. He stood there breathing heavily for a second and rubbing his sore neck as he tried to fend off the grateful woman's attempts to bestow more thanks on him. There were too many destroyed homes tonight. Between the earthbenders, the Masks, and the spirits he wasn't sure which were worse. Then someone shouted his name from off in the dark:

"Xiaobao!"

Jiang gingerly poked his way around a corner in this damp and narrow street. He still didn't seem to like even walking around these warren-like neighborhoods as it seemed to pose of a risk of him touching something or, even worse, being touched by something from outside the city walls. But Xiaobao had to admit the two students had been invaluable tonight. Having someone who could even pretend they knew what they were doing made things so much easier.

"What are you doing out here?" Jiang said. "There are other people who can do stuff like this, you're too important. Come back, I think people are getting mad at Zhangyi."

Well, that last bit at least sounded believable even if the rest was nonsense. The woman had her possessions so Xiaobao followed Jiang back to the wider street where a bit of a rough command center had accidentally been established. As Xiaobao stepped into the lane, a number of men wearing black headbands nodded at him. Xiaobao didn't recognize half of them. After the disaster at the theatre the neighborhood watch had spread across the town, freely deputizing any crew who wanted to help. Really, it wasn't like they had real authority to do any of this so they might as well go all out.

Now they'd reached where the harbor streets met the Riverwall, hoping to form some sort of barrier of resistance across the town to cut off the Bed and the town's north from the southern half where the worst of the fighting between the government and the Masks was taking place. The Masks seemed to be sticking close to the canals for some reason, so that at least gave them some hope of predicting their movement and countering it. If that forced all the Masks to go fight with the Exclusion then so be it. The firebenders seemed more capable than most of defending their own. Xiaobao had seen too many people die already tonight.

At the center of a knot of people, Zhangyi was standing on a box and loudly saying something about "organized devision of structured labor". He was wearing a wide black headband and surrounded by people who looked about ready to shove him in the canal. Xiaobao had expected that. What he hadn't expected was Ayika's mother suddenly materializing in front of him to jab her finger in his chest.

"Maolin! Where's Ayika? And what's this I hear about you being in charge around here?"

Instantly Xiaobao felt like he eleven again. He'd spent so long watching after Xinfei as his brother played with Ayika that Maekayae had wormed her way into his head in a second mother. Then, after his father's death, though he hated to think about that way Maekayae had become nearly their only mother as his own retreated further and further into her sad private world.

"Uh, hi mam. Oh, don't worry. Ayika's...safe. She's...off that way?" He gestured vaguely behind him towards the safer part of town. He hoped his smile wasn't as guilty as it felt.

"Don't lie to me, boy," Maekayae glared up at Xiaobao in a way which managed to make him feel very small indeed. "Who's she with? Xinfei? Or is it that Yaki girl?"

"Yaki? Who's-"

"You know, the girl who looks kinda Fire Nation. Talks posh with an accent. I know Ayika's been spending time with that one."

Xiaobao blinked. He only had the barest idea what was going on. Ayika's stories always tripped him up but he had to guess that Yaki was Muzumi. "...yes? Yes. Ayika is, um, with both of those people. Uh, don't worry, Xinfei promised to look after her. She's...helping us out?

Maekayae narrowed her eyes at him. "You're a lousy lier. But that's a good thing, it's why these people are trusting you. My girl's the better lier, but I still spot it." She muttered, "With Yaki. Great. I saw how that one went on. Definitely got some war-time parentage in her. And everyone knows how that sort is."

Then she crossed her arms and sighed, more weary than angry now. "Sigh. I should have seen this coming. First you then Ayika. I knew there was something in the water here, doing this to the kids. Why won't the government do anything about _that_?"

She wasn't even looking at him anymore but Xiaobao was in the meantime just trying to stop choking. " _Gah, pah_! Uh, what? What about me then Ayika? What to us?" No, she couldn't mean what he thought. There was no way she could know his deepest secret. Hell, it had taken years for _him_ to know! He'd never even acted on it.

But Maekayae wasn't paying him any attention. She just tapped her foot as her mouth twisted in worry. "At least Xinfei turned out right. Knew that when he turned eleven and started staring at my chest. 'Course that boy has enough trouble just being him, so I suppose it's for the best," she shrugged wearily. "Just...When you see my girl, tell her to come home."

Xiaobao felt faint. He frantically looked around to see if anyone was listening. Some of the younger guys were snickering at big Xiaobao getting chewed out by a woman who didn't rise past his chest, but the older men cuffed them into silence quickly enough. Any sensible man knew that just standing up to a Bed mother on the warpath was heroic enough for ten men. Xiaobao swallowed. This all felt unreal, no one seemed to have registered anything that Maekayae'd said. He was starting to think the spirits were addling his brain now and he'd imagined the whole speech. Wait, he hadn't right? Had Mua ever mentioned how to tell about the spirits?

Then Xiaobao saw Ayika's father Kadat coming up and then Maekayae jabbed him in the chest again. "And not a word to my husband. Women's business or so help you, boy." All the protective fierceness returned in an instant.

Xiaobao was only too happy to nod. "Hey Kadat! Glad to see you, ha ha!" He hoped he didn't sound as frantic as he felt.

Kadat just held out his hand and firmly clasped Xiaobao's arm. His eyes were hard and for once his voice was firm and decisive. "It's them again, isn't it? The ones who killed Chouyu."

"Yeah. It's... it's worse tonight."

Kadat nodded. He just said, "Then what can I do?"

Somehow from across the lane Zhangyi heard that and instantly materialized at Xiaobao's side with a notebook and pencil. "Excellent, additional recruitment! Sir, now if I could just get you name and place of employment." Kadat blinked in confusion at this young native man who looked like a prince and yet was addressing him as 'sir'. Zhangyi didn't seem to notice. "If your work team hasn't yet been integrated then the most important thing you can do is seek out your coworkers and recruit them to come back and help. The name of the game tonight is manpower."

The distant thud of an explosion somewhere across the town only made Kadat's eyebrow climb still higher. Zhangyi wavered slightly, "Well, fire prevention too, but again that comes down to membership numbers. And when victory over these insidious spiritual forces is achieved, think of all the good a unified force of the working class can accomplish for our great nation! See, I just signed on an entire cartdriver's collective."

Xiaobao wearily glanced over at the men Zhangyi was gesturing to and then instantly bellowed when he saw what they were carrying on their belts. "Hey, what did I say! No knives! I don't care if the guards aren't going to be enforcing tonight, if you're the one who goes spirit crazy next we don't need you slicing us!"

A new brisk female voice broke through the street noise. "That's sense. Keep it up with the firm hand, just as long as you don't try extending that rule to any of my people."

Xiaobao spun around. "Huh? Mrs Anyakya!"

While most of the people out on the streets tonight held expressions of barely contained terror, Anyakya the laundry owner appeared irritated more than anything else. Of course she was flanked on each side by men even bigger than Xiaobao so that might have had something to do with it. Both of them had heavy clubs hanging from their belts alongside cloth wrapped items that looked suspiciously like long vicious knives. Most of the Black Bands looked confused by this woman marching in like she was queen of the world, but Xiaobao noticed that all the other tribal people gave her respectful nods. Folks knew Anyakya.

Then she planted herself in front of Xiaobao. She was looking up to inspect him and he found himself really wanting to not be found wanting. He also wished that he'd listened to Ayika explain this woman a bit more.

Anyakya sniffed, not impressed. "So. Bao. You're the one behind all these headbands."

"Well, see, it's kind of a weird story and-"

"Yeah, spare me. This town needs some order right now and damn if the government's giving it. If you're what we've got then you'll at least look the part if I have anything to say. Otherwise it'll just be a stampede people'll be looting here in a heartbeat." She snapped her fingers and one of the burly men beside her held out a bundle to Xiaobao.

Xiaobao grabbed the thing on reflex and then held it up. It was a vest, but of good dark blue fabric and embroidered in white with the characters " _Kuang Harbor_ ". There was a wide black stripe that wrapped around the waist. It looked...official. "Oh wow. You made this?"

"Ha! Hell no. I've got too much money to sew, that's why I've got girls." She waved her hand. "And don't worry about paying. Nah, I'll give you time to set up your organization's collection tithe and get your finances in order before that bill comes due."

"Uh, wait. What? My what?"

"Just as long as you and your _workers-together_ buddies stay far away from any of my employees. You got that? I think you'd be mighty unhappy if you crossed me here, right Sang?"

The big man on her right grunted, "Right. Very unhappy."

Xiaobao felt light headed. He'd completely given up on understanding tonight. If the Masks didn't tear the whole town to shreds then it was all these water tribe women who were going to be the death of him.

As if on queue, Anyakya said, "Oh, and tell that Ayika girl she's fired." This was an afterthought and she continued to grumble to herself, "I go to the trouble of hiring an in-house shaman and of course she goes awol as soon as violent maniacs start running around telling people they're spirits. Should've known, tribal folks always buy into that spirit world stuff way too much."

Xiaobao just hoped that Ayika and Xinfei were getting close to whatever shamany solution they were hoping for. Then all those thoughts were interrupted by another burst of screaming, this time followed by wild roars like fire and shattering wood. Suddenly, Xiaobao wasn't worried or confused anymore. He couldn't afford to be.

"All right men!" He called out, running forward against the people fleeing the other direction. He didn't bother looking back to see if anyone was following. "This is why we're here!" He could hear the Masks up ahead, playing in their infantile cruelty and so he planted his feet in the middle of this dark dirty street. Those creatures were wandering this way, so it was up to him to dissuade them. There were people to protect. That at least made sense.

"This is our home and we will hold!" he yelled and somehow there were half a hundred voices yelling with him.

...

Mizumi fought her way through the packed streets, jabbing out with elbows and shoving with her shoulder to make some avenue through the press of fearful people. At least that was one useful technique this city had taught her. Just ahead, Ayika gripped tightly onto her wrist to keep from being separated. Mizumi couldn't see any of the others. The neighborhood ahead was the heart of the chaos in the Lower Ring. It represented the point where the people who were fleeing the advance of the furious guards met those who were fleeing from the maelstrom of fire and spirits and Masks that represented the epicenter of the disturbance between the worlds.

Mizumi then turned a corner and came face to face with a solid stone slab filling the mouth of an intersecting street. There were screams and shouts coming from the other side.

At her side, Ayika cursed at the barrier. It was not the first they'd seen tonight. She said, "Damn it, the guards raised the blocks here too. But that's the right direction. The ghosts are getting more the closer we get. But it sounds like there's people past this and they'll all be affected. If we could find a way-"

"Ayika!" Mizumi pulled her back as a man climbed over the top of the slab wall above them dropped down, landing heavily where Ayika had been standing a moment ago. More people were climbing out of the second floor windows on each side of the raised slab, piling over each other as the buildings creaked and cracked from the press of people shoving their way up and through them. One woman slipped as she lowered herself out of a crowded window and landed wrong on the street below, suddenly screaming out a shriek of pain as her ankle broke. Mizumi recoiled from the wide-eyed fear in these people's soot stained faces, the kind of fear that would lead a person to do anything to protect them and theirs.

Mizumi looked back the direction she and Ayika had come from. "Did we manage to stay with any of our other friends or...?"

She broke off speaking as she recognized the one person on the street with them who was not running. Ma'er was still here. The man dark green robes walked up to the wall that blocked the road, finding a place in the empty space directly in the center away from the sides where climbing people spilled over, and planted his stance. Then he thrust out his hands, transitioning between powerful, firm magical gestures.

Mizumi just had time to turn towards Ma'er and thank him before she was stopped by a sudden crashing sound. A glowing Mask fell from the cloudy, smoke-filled night and landed with a thud on the half-fallen barrier. People tumbled back, screaming, while the thing wreathed in a blue aurora roared out like the grinding of glaciers. Then half of a building facade exploded outwards to crash into the possessed monstrosity.

Ma'er was on the attack. He wasted no time telling the girls to run; he had enough faith in their own sense for that. Indeed, they were already scrambling past the barricade as Ma'er spun into a series of punches that tore up pieces of the street to launch at the Mask. The monster dodged to the side, spectral blue claws sinking into building walls at it dashed along vertical slopes before grabbing onto a falling chimney which Ma'er had just ripped free. It struck back but the ground had already flung Ma'er up and out the way.

From behind her Mizumi heard these sounds, shattering tiles and crunching wood and the laughter of angry spirits over the terrified screams of helpless people. All she could do was scramble over the half fallen wall and to keep running. Ayika was beside her.

When the two of them were around several corners and out of the immediate conflict they took a moment to catch their breath, leaning against a boarded up storefront. On the dirt below their feet lay scattered debris of personal effects that had slipped through the hands of evacuees. Down the narrow street a tall apartment building, hopefully empty, had transformed into a towering inferno, turning the black night orange. The flames were spreading to neighboring structures and there was no chance of help arriving to stop it. Even in a best case scenario, tonight an area larger than Mizumi's home town in the Nation would burn to the ground. And that was if Ayika actually succeeded in her mission.

Mizumi looked over to meet Ayika's eyes. In such a short time they were all that remained the group that had set out from Kuang Harbor. The others had all been lost in the chaos. They had no idea if Ma'er would be able to win his fight or if he would be able to find them again. However, they couldn't afford to stay. Things were getting worse by the moment. The free spirits and the Masks were both growing still stronger and by now even Mizumi was starting to see the dim suggestions of grey ghosts flitting slowly across the streets. She flinched away as one drew closer and she felt a shiver of anger, fear, and hunger for everything she'd never had. Ayika's grimace confirmed it. The ghosts were all around them, and even Ayika's shaman abilities couldn't keep their influence for more than a moment. This world was coming apart at the seams. On Mizumi's cheeks the cold of night mixed with the harsh radiating heat of the fires.

Suddenly, there was a sound of pounding footsteps behind them. Four people, three men and a woman came barreling around a shadowed corner and stopped, supporting themselves bent over with hands on their knees as they regained their breath. Mizumi saw Ayika look up at them and briefly her eyes showed a desire to help them before becoming weary again. Mizumi understood why. She could see the faint suggestions of grey shadows that were now inching towards those newcomers who weren't protected by the authority of even an untrained shaman. They would be maddened very soon.

The woman in the fleeing group straightened up and saw the two girls on the other side of the abandoned, half-burnt street. She called out, "Hey, are you all right? That blue thing attacked back there at the district border, we'll need to head another way out."

Ayika silently shook her head, too tired to deal with this. They didn't need to find a way out. They were heading deeper in and that path would lead these people only closer to danger. Mizumi took her lead and began to walk away from the small group, angling towards a small street mouth that seemed to be going in the direction they had been heading.

One of the men stepped forward. "Hold on a minute! It's ok, you can stay with us! We live over on Paniu road; We know other ways out of this district."

His friend now put an arm up as he moved in the same direction. "Wait, Wenpu, look at that girl. She's one of those foreigners!"

Mizumi tensed up, ready for what was coming next, but he continued, "She's a Tribal! That's why she's refusing to talk to us!"

For a moment Mizumi felt flat footed. Then she realized that on a dark night and in a local style dress, a woman from the Fire Nation might pass for a native of the city. However, Ayika's brown skin marked her out. Ayika finally yelled back, letting her thick local accent out to prove her residency. "Where the hell do I sound like I'm from? You all get out now! We've got to run back and grab an heirloom before everything burns up!"

However, Ayika's alibi didn't go over well. "What the hell kind of heirlooms would a Tribal have here? And with a friend dressed like a freaking courtesan." Those previously concerned faces were now clouded with suspicion. The four of them continued moving towards the girls. "Those Tribals are always involved with spirits aren't they?"

Out of the corner of her eye Mizumi saw a faint grey ripple creep through the air towards the woman. That lady lowered her brow as something passed behind her eyes. "Yeah, they are. Their witchdoctors unleashed a bunch of spirits back during the war. Killed a whole Fire Nation fleet, I heard. So what's one of them doing here?"

"I saw that thing which attacked back there, it was glowing blue and had transparent tentacles. Fought that earthbender. That sounds like spirit magic to me. And I heard that foreigners killed a minister up in the Inner Ring."

Mizumi wanted to scream at them that they'd gotten absolutely everything wrong, but one hint of her accent could only make things worse. Not that she immediately saw how that could be, there were already nearly invisible shades of the hungry ghosts clutching at these people. The ghosts were unseen by their victims but Mizumi noticed a feverish expression of fear as the touch of the the other world began to cloud their thoughts. Ayika was still trying to convince them to go their way, but their addled minds had reached their own conclusion. The four locals advanced, spreading out into a semi circle.

No, diplomacy had failed. Now it was time for another approach. Mizumi reached in her jacket sleeve and drew forth her knife. Those people were paying attention to her now. Abandoning concerns about her accent, Mizumi said, "Just go on your way away from the danger. We are heading the opposite direction so there is no need for this meeting to be prolonged." She had to do something, even if she heard Ayika hiss in regret as she saw the knife be drawn.

The local residents flinched back from the bared blade, but they frowned more and they did not leave. "What's with that voice? She a foreigner too?"

"Yeah, she looks a bit funny now that I see. Foreigners sneaking around behind the evacuation? I bet they're part of this! They probably set the fires themselves! Them and their spirit magic allies!" That man leaned down and grabbed a metal candlestick off the street that someone had carried all this way only to loose a grip on. Sweat beaded on his brow and his eyes were wide, darting back and forth as dim grey shadows flitted through his brain.

Ayika tried to bring some sense back. "No! We're just trying to...!"

The ghost-addled people moved forward. Mizumi brandished her knife, but they still forced her a few steps backwards. Too late, she realized that they'd managed to almost separate her from Ayika. One of the men lunged. Mizumi yelled, Ayika's leg kicked out, and the man grunted in pain as he crumpled into himself clutching between his legs. However, the next man bowled into Ayika with his entire weight. No matter how many tricks Ayika knew, she couldn't do anything about the fact that this man was a foot taller and almost twenty kilograms heavier than her. She fell back onto the street heavily.

In that instant all Mizumi's innate reservations about using a weapon against another human vanished. The constant, frightened monologue of her thoughts blinked out of existence and in two deep breaths she was at Ayika's side as if she'd skipped the intervening space. A man and a woman screamed behind her, clutching their bleeding new slashes. Mizumi turned back, eyes narrowed as her heart continued to thud in her ears. In that dash, someone had struck her but she couldn't feel it over that heartbeat. She was ready to move again, knife prepared to stab instead of cut this time. A drop of blood dripped from the blade.

Luckily, in their assailants' fear had finally been pushed over the edge from aggression to terror. They stumbled back, beginning to retreat. Mizumi glanced over to check on Ayika and after receiving a nod they both stood up and watchfully slid across the rest of the street for another path out of there. The four ghost addled citizens slowly vanished from view around the corner. Then Mizumi and Ayika turned to run.

At the next street intersection it was clear they weren't being pursued. Mizumi panted as she turned around, trying to regain her bearings. "All right, I believe that this is the direction we were heading in. I think..." She raised her arm to point and winced as a new rising bruise made itself known. The edge of that metal candlestick had struck her shoulder fairly hard. Luckily it wasn't the same shoulder that Naruhama had burned.

However, Ayika still noticed that flinch. She grabbed Mizumi to hold her still and eased the jacket half off as she looked closely at the new injury, seemingly grateful that the golden qipao underneath was at least sleeveless. As she came in close, Mizumi hurried to awkwardly move the knife away. The vicious rage she'd felt a moment ago was now resurfacing in her memory and she didn't want Ayika to think of her that way. Ayika noticed that too.

Ayika reached out to put her hand on Mizumi's wrist right above where her clutched hand held the knife. Ayika looked up to meet Mizumi's eyes. "Thank you. That blade saved me, I know it. I'm not afraid of it. Hell, I bless it."

Despite her weariness and the thudding pain which now seemed to come from every part of her body Mizumi felt the corners of her mouth twitch up into a smile. Ayika was covered in soot and dirt, her hair growing wilder as it slowly escaped from its braids. And yet she was so beautiful. Mizumi knew that she was just as filthy, with the addition of a few spots of blood, but when Ayika looked back at her like that she felt beautiful too. They didn't say anything else to each other but they turned and walked off, deeper into the heat and the flickering dark of the endless burning streets.

...


	64. Cost

...

Ayika coughed as shift in the hot air carried more smoke into her mouth. She looked back once more to ensure that Mizumi was still there. Ever since Ma'er and the others disappeared Ayika was terrified that at any moment she would turn around and Mizumi would be gone too, taken, leaving Ayika alone in the hellish chaos of this nearly deserted neighborhood. The rising hordes of hungry ghosts were thick and grasping here and the flames of the burning buildings the two women passed behaved strangely. At least there were fewer physical obstacles to moving down these streets. The guards had never gotten the chance to raise the stone barricades here and the residents had fled quickly enough that no one had bothered to build their own. As long as Ayika concentrated on whatever ghost repelling aura her meager shaman powers could muster, she and Mizumi were safe.

At that moment, to prove her a liar, Ayika heard a woman cry out. Mizumi grasped Ayika's wrist but they soon both saw that there was no immediate danger. Well, no danger to them. As they wound their way through the half-seen specters in all their shapes, now visible to Mizumi as well, they saw a human woman in a torn dress leaning against a brick wall. Her face was in her hands and glowing blue spirit birds perched on her shoulders, plucking threads of memories from from her head while dim ghosts clutched at her legs. That woman was not the first person like this they'd seen. They were getting closer to the epicenter and the spiritual disturbances here were too much for any unprepared human to deal with. The girls left the woman and continued onward down the web of crowded deserted streets, lit by flickering orange light of wild fire through window-frames and doorways. The bright spirit birds watched them pass.

Mizumi was the first to speak. She looked around at the burning buildings rising up on each side of them. All the fires were dancing now. "I have seen many examples of firebending but these flames are still very unnerving to me."

Ayika agreed. This near Naruhama's mask, fire covered nearly every apartment and every shop yet it had lost its appetite. The all encompassing blaze flexed and pulsed in spreading waves but though the walls were black and pitted the fire had here gained a measure of unreality. It required no fuel to sustain its self. Those whipping sheets of fire seemed to simply dwell here now, poking through the charred wood and bamboo like a new type of grass waving in a hot wind, clinging to walls like climbing vines.

Ayika and Mizumi advanced forward and eventually came into a small square around a stone well made bright by fire on every side. The flagstones and the well were the only things here that were not now more blaze than substance as all the surrounding buildings were completely engulfed in fire. On the far side of the stone flagging several red spirit dogs trotted across the space from other streets, but they avoided the approaching humans and quickly disappeared to make mischief elsewhere.

"All right." Ayika turned around several times and tried to sense if they were still advancing towards the center of the disturbance. She thought that they must be. That aching below her brain felt hallow and drum-like. They walked out into the square towards the edge of the well that once watered the departed families who had lived here. "I think we're almost there. This is...Flowing Water Square? I think? So when we find Tian or Naruhama's mask I'll try and-"

Loud, inhuman laughter rang out across the square. "Child of the city! Why are you here?"

Mizumi was so tired. She no more profanity left in her as she turned to face the sound of the Mask calling to them. There were so many of them, leaping through fire and dropping down from the rooftops, their host bodies almost entirely concealed within the emerging spirit forms that now just barely conformed to the standards of humanoid shape. Ayika sagged and absently wiped some of the soot off her face with her sleeve. In the back of her mind some small voice commented that it was good that her opera-going outfit was made of such dark, stain-hiding cloth. They'd gotten so close to their goal, but they had no more allies to fight for them.

One of the Masks landed down on the stones of the square with a shuddering thud. He rose up, dressed like a prosperous middle ring shopkeeper but now those clothes were hidden behind the green glow that clung to his skin. Phantasmal tentacles wavered off his back; reaching, grasping like living vines.

"What do you want with that drifting, fractured human?" the hybrid creature growled. "The fire-souled is so very interesting left how he is! Come, two autumn flowers clutching and withering, play with us instead!"

Ayika looked up to meet Mask's attention. These were still spirits, no matter what twisted ritual had brought them here. So she stood as tall as she could and spoke with a confidence she did not feel. "I am Ayika of the Water Tribe here to complete the funeral rites of Aza Naruhama. His unquiet ghost has been upsetting your world as well as our own. Our task is proper and will suffer no interference! This is the ritual and the contract!"

The Mask cackled back beneath eyeholes filled with bubbling gold. "Yes, the worlds are upset here. And so we are thankful!" The mixture of spirit and man roared out, "For us there is no contract. We are the distant, the unwatched, the shadows of unremembered forests, the winds off leveled hills. Now we return, and take our place from those twisted spirits who allied with the humans from ages past. The fire ghost will remain."

Ayika quailed before their rage, but now it was Mizumi who yelled back, proud and defiant over her terrified heart. "Yes, this land has its own spirits, its own gods to watch over them. You are not welcome! We are here to quiet the soul of a great man and we will do so despite you!"

Even as her voice rang off the burning walls another Mask dropped down from high above to land beside his green fellow, taking up the conversation as if he had been party to it all along. The flagstones cracked under his feet. "The veil must remain weakened. What man has done we cannot yet permit you to undo." This one was dressed in the black and white robes of a university student, now consumed with shifting shadows like black fire.

Every occupant of the square, spirit and human, jerked slightly as Ayika let out a single loud laugh. Despite the weariness in her bones and heart a smile twitched at the edges of her lips.

"Not yet? Then you're not ready. Not ready to try and overthrow the Spirit Gods. You haven't won yet." She was surprised to find condescension in her voice mixed with a hint of pity. "You may call the gods of our land pitiful and weak, but you still fear them. You still fear this city!"

The Shadow Mask roared. "We who have crossed fear nothing! Those who dwell here are bound in chains of ritual and rule, and the people who empowered them have forgotten them! We are unrestrained, we are beholden to none, and we we are free!" Even the ground seemed to shudder as he raged.

Ayika tilted her head to the smile in goodnatured acceptance. There was a certain freedom in hopelessness. Nearby she could hear the sound of water flowing along within the depths of the stone well. A crazy, unlikely idea had occurred to her. The fires had been following the path of the canals. There was a place no spirit could find, because the spirit that ruled there was forgotten. The broken body of the Kuang River still flowed under this city.

She looked up at the spiritual army before her. She smirked and in her mind she imagined Grandma Aka laughing from her next life. "You know? You're right. We in the city like our rules. Well, then let's follow some." She kicked out with her toe to scrape a circle in the ash that covered the flagstones. "Mizumi, I-"

Mizumi interrupted her. "Do what you are doing." A cacophonous symphony of otherworldly growls rose from the semicircle of Masks at the edge of the square, drowning out the crackle of burning buildings. Mizumi turned half way, showing them her profile as her eyes stayed locked on her enemy. Then she flexed her shoulders and her black coat slid down her back, falling the ground with a flick of her arms.

"I will stand before you."

The same hopeless calm that had washed through Ayika could now be heard in Mizumi's voice. She was almost laughing, all out of things to fear.

"After everything that has happened to us, this is a very simple problem to face! Do what you will! I can fight!"

The Masks roared as Mizumi faced them alone. Ayika closed her eyes and felt her center. Despite the wincing anxiety of her heart she tried to shut out the sound of growls and screams that reached her ears. She felt the very core of this land reaching up through the soles of her feet but she didn't begin the mystic chants to water and life that she'd heard her Grandma Aka and Mama Mua both use. Instead she simply spoke in a low voice:

"Exchange is the rule. Well, I offer service for service. You spirit gods all live here too, and this mess is threatening to wipe you all away. I'm here to save your collective hides from a ghost god and these scavengers clinging to him so I think that buys me a bit of credit. And as for which of you I am calling, the names and titles, I'd have to say..." She took a breath. "Every. Damn. One"

A deep voice instantly spoke from beside her shoulder. "You are presumptuous, aren't you."

Ayika opened her eyes to see the huge shape of Gold Toad rising out of the square's sealed well. Before, on the night of the festival, his amphibian shape had been a pale yellow shadow, ethereal beneath the moon. Now, at the heart of the hole being torn from this world to the other, he shone like a molten fortune. His eyes were jade, his claws were ebony and his skin was glistening precious metal. He nodded down to Ayika and his wide mouth might have had a slight triumphant smile. Behind him more shapes and colors began to coalesce out of the night air.

"It is good to see you again, young priest. Are those fool things in the masks still trying to find what I have hidden? Ha! No spirit, not even I, could break that charm."

There was a furious howl and Ayika turned back, fearfully looking for Mizumi. Four of the Masks had advanced forward, their natural inability to cooperate overcome by the anticipation of easily overpowering the young Fire Nation woman who stood before them. But now they'd darted back and the shadow-draped Mask in the student robes was clutching at his arm. A stream of very human blood ran down it. Mizumi still stood in her place and the blade of her knife decorated with a thin smear of red. The thick drops landed on the stones with a curiously loud sound that somehow carried over the fire and anguished panting of the spirit monster.

The Shadow Mask threw up its twisted shifting face; now carved from wood, now living creature. "How?" it howled in confusion. "We've grown so strong! Your mortal tools cannot harm us! This is impossible!"

Mizumi laughed and that sweet sound echoed across the four walls of fire that surrounded them. "One day it will cease to amuse me when men-things underestimate us. My blade is shaman blessed! Ayika gave it the strength to rip any of you things apart and if you take a single step more I will do just that. I wield her power! So come. Try me." She shifted her foot forward and the knife crept through the air, causing some of the Masks to lean back still further, unwelcome fear creeping into their otherworldly mind.

Ayika was not as sure about that as Mizumi. In fact, she was just as surprised as the Masks.

In the well beside Ayika, Gold Toad grumbled deep from his expansive belly. His front claws gripped on the lip of the well as he pulled himself out and onto the stones beside it, his lone back leg twisted awkwardly to support him. He too took issue with Mizumi's explanation. "Grrm. That is not the way things actually work."

But another voice, deep and dark, came from behind him. It was a hissing inhalation in from the shadows. "On this night, in this place, it is. The barrier is thin, and she is filled with belief. Tonight, anything done with that much... strength, it is ritual. After all, that is the key."

The Masks all stepped backwards in horror as Ayika and Mizumi turned around to see Blind Dog Lord, rising up before the backdrop of fire in his dingy ancient glory. He was not alone. The spirit gods of this little corner of the city had responded to the call. Beside Blind Dog Lord were other spirits, a woman who glittered like an iridescent beetle, wooden people wrapped in bands of iron, two hooded shadows, and woman made of shadowed water. Others were still arriving, almost a hundred, birds and sackcloth men and cats with many eyes. Even a small shirtless man who's claws gleamed like burning embers.

Mizumi called out with a cheerful excitement alien to their current situation, "You, little fire spirit! I recognize you!"

In the midst of her relief Ayika managed to find some space for confusion as she frowned at the little spirit from Mua's fireplace. "You? Why are you with the city gods? I thought you were just trying to get a way to stay here." She and Mizumi might be struck down at any moment and yet Ayika was still bothered that this one spirit was out of place in her understanding of city cosmology.

The fire man laughed. "And I found the way! You'd be surprised how many people offer prayers to gods when they're afraid of burning themselves! Progress, always creating opportunities! You stand before the God of Matches!"

Ayika turned back to her enemies. The assembled Masks looked much less certain than they had a moment ago. They'd been drawn here to the disturbance between the worlds but now instead of two women alone they faced a small horde of minor gods. Even the puny humans had proved themselves capable of inflicting harm. But the wild spirits that responded to Huitzlan's masks had been brought over by Erliao's calls of anger and aggression so they couldn't keep themselves restrained for long. Indeed, in their frustration the ones at the edge of the square vented their rage with random destruction, turning around to further shred the flame-wreathed buildings with their bare hands. One of the carelessly flung wooden beams actually almost hit Ayika and Mizumi but they managed to duck out of the way.

Blind Dog Lord took a glacial step forward across the square. His green robes, dark almost to black and embroidered with strange designs, swept across the stones. As the jaws in his withered canine head opened with a hiss, all the strange dancing flames that surrounded this space seemed to sway towards him at the same moment. Around him, the other spirit gods lowered themselves in bows. However, the Masks showed no such respect. As Blind Dog Lord approached they rose up taller, wings, tentacles and spikes bristling like the fur on the backs of a wild beasts. The eyeless lord advanced until he was beside Ayika and Mizumi.

Blind Dog Lord spoke slowly, with a hissing inhalation that ended in an impact like the thud of falling granite slabs. "Unruly spirits, all those humans who planned for your crossing are gone to await their reincarnation. Those who remain are inhabited by you and thus in no fit state to constitute a willful calling. The ritual you are party to has reached its completion. Do not interfere any further or you shall face penalty of enforcement."

The Green Mask of spectral vines laughed mockingly. "You feeble grandiose thing," it spat. It moved across the square to crouch below Blind Dog Lord's looming shadow. "What have humans done that has earned you adopting their chains? You were once a mortal. How could you actually remember any fondness for those creatures? They left you starving, mutilated, wandering on bleeding paws through this barren stone forest they created. You were abandoned. Yet you still tried to help them! You gave food to some misbegotten priest and in return you died. You are still a slave to them."

The Masks roared together, "Bow before us for we are free!"

Blind Dog Lord didn't change his posture at all. Only his grey notched ears over empty sockets moved in the slightest. "None of us are free. But some of us choose our chains. It is those bonds that give us strength. Now depart and leave this priest to her work." The robed figure seemed to grow still taller. "If you do not, I will expend every sliver of power I yet have to rip you apart even if it takes me three thousand years to recover." He gestured to the assembled gods behind him. "We all will. We will burn our souls to defeat you. Are your compatriots willing to sacrifice that much?"

For a moment there was the sensation of incredible pressure and force wavering through the air. All around them in the burning buildings the flames all slowly halted and fell to motionlessness. Ayika found that she had forgotten to breath. Then the tension broke and the Green Mask stepped back. His black and white robed companion with the bleeding arm turned his head in growling frustration. That Mask then looked up at Blind Dog Lord through a face made of wood and shadow and somewhere inside, a human being.

"Slave," it hissed. But it made no move to challenge him. "Accepted. We will not harm your shaman."

The shadow-spirit Mask turned to leave as the rest of its kind made similar frustrated motions. It took a single step away and Ayika breathed out. Then the Shadow Mask shot out a clawed arm and grabbed Mizumi by her face. Ayika blinked at Mizumi's muffled scream and then that thing flung her through the air with a single thrust of its palm. Mizumi slammed back into the side of the well with a heavy crack. She didn't make a sound as she rebounded onto the ground. Her knife clattered as it rattled loose over the cobbles.

The spirit gods and the Masks erupted into an earth shattering screech as they leapt together in battle. The fire that surrounded them roared as it resumed its tortured dance. Ayika heard none of it. Her ears were filled with a strange dim ringing. For two everlasting, unforgivable seconds she stood there thinking about the strangely sharp taste of smoke in her mouth. Then the nature of time changed again and she was on her knees beside Mizumi. Ayika reached out to stroke Mizumi's face and get her attention. Then she pulled back her hand. Her fingers were wet and red where they'd touched the back of that hair. Mizumi didn't move.

All around Ayika a spiritual battle raged. Monsters that acted like men fought men that acted like monsters in a shifting, amorphous cacophony of slicing claws and tearing teeth that rent the border of the worlds. Ayika saw none of this. She knelt on the smooth, weathered cobble stones beside Mizumi's gently resting form. Everything was still. Then a black foot stepped into the edge of her sight.

She looked up to see a figure of shadow standing before her, a human shape carved out of pure and seamless black. The void it had above its shoulders met Ayika's gaze. Then the spirit bowed deeply and respectfully to the still girl lying beside her. Its duty was done, its omen delivered, its journey complete. The Nine-Step-Shadow rose again and turned to face the battle that was ripping the streets and buildings to shreds. Soft black ribbons unfolded from where it would have arms if it were truly human, spreading out like flexing wings. Then it stepped forward towards another target. It was, after all, only a messenger of death.

Ayika slowly pulled herself up onto her feet, numb and unfeeling. Then, as she stood she stumbled slightly and her foot slid forward to bump into Mizumi's side. In that small, pointless instant all her paralyzing shock transformed into rage. The warm blood on her fingers now burned like molten metal; burned like the fire in Mizumi's soul. The world vibrated as Ayika's anger, anguish, and fury came bursting forth. Every fiber of her body held itself stiff with painful tension. She looked up at the battle. There was no thought, no plan. She just clapped her hands together and the blood on one spread to both.

Sound vanished and spirits and the Masks both froze, victor and defeated, whole and mangled all together. They were held, restrained by a magic too powerful to be party to any rules, by ritual older than memory. At the heart of the merging worlds Ayika pressed the blood of the woman she loved between her fingers into a single talisman. It was her clay disk, her brittle stick, her piece of straw. It was a symbol. And then she pulled her hands apart, breaking that sign in half.

"Get out."

The square was quiet. The spirit gods were gone. The human forms of the Masks collapsed down onto the ground; still, blackened things, pitted and ruined forever by the spirit possessors who had never planned to leave. One of the wooden masks rocked slightly as it slid off its former wearer onto the ground. Ayika recognized the motionless, scarred face of Chonglong in those black and white university robes, but there was nothing more to be felt there. Anger had departed with all the life around her. Sorrow had yet to arrive.

Ayika stood alone in the empty square. Distantly, the city roared from every direction with the sounds of fire and screams and conflict. But here the fire made no sound other than a faint fluttering as it continued to burn without consuming. That subtle noise mixed with the muffled sound of running water that filtered up from the open mouth of the square's well. Distant memories of the city chimed themselves to Ayika's attention. She knew what to look for now. There was always a path.

It was just around the corner from the square. There was a small narrow staircase leading down to the dark under the street pavement. Down to the fresh-water aqueduct that here within the walls of the city had been built over by the perpetual waves of construction. It was somewhere that a scared young man might hide from monsters who were searching for him, enough water to hide the spiritual fire. But the spirits and the Masks had been following the canals, drawn to the traces of power washed down through the sewers to the harbor outside the walls. Even shredded and chained, the Kuang River was still the lifeblood of the city, for spirits as well as humans.

It was a heavy burden to lift but Ayika held Mizumi in her arms as she walked to the mouth of those stairs. At some point there'd been a door but that had burnt away sometime earlier tonight. Ayika looked straight ahead, never down at her burden. She wasn't sure why she was doing this, but she also knew that she had no choice. The muscles in her arms already hurt from carrying the weight. She ignored them.

Then there was another black shadow standing beside her. She didn't look at it.

"I told you all to leave."

The male voice that answered was kindly even as it clicked with the faint sound of metal sliding over metal. "By my nature I have a loophole, Ayika."

She turned her head by the smallest degree possible. This spirit was dressed in black as well, but by the light of the fires she could finally see under his hood. His face was made of ten thousand metal blades, all fluctuated as if they moved on hidden hinges. His knife-edge lips clicked as they moved.

Ayika looked away again. At least she recognized him now. "Scissors-man," She said, flatly. "I didn't think you were real."

The terror of her childhood shrugged, the bladed body beneath those manifested clothes making more metal noises. "There was a time when I was not, despite my existence. The frightened belief of a young shaman is a powerful thing."

Ayika didn't bother to think about that. She couldn't bring herself to wonder or to fear. It was all irrelevant. "You've spoken to me before. The school, the funeral, the party."

"Yes. But I do not mind that you didn't recognize me. It was my honor to provide welcome and warning to one at the center of everything."

Ayika's arms were beginning to shake under their limp burden. "Stay out of my way."

The spirit bowed his head of points, edges and hinges. "I would dream of nothing else. You gave me form and place. You have done so very much."

Ayika just breathed heavily and stepped down into the dark staircase to the underground aqueduct.

The vaulted tunnel should have been dark but here and there small clusters of flames magically sprouted into existence, licking at bare stone before melting away again. Even the surface of the flowing water supported those same brief fires. They seemed to be pulsing outward in expanding rings. A little way down the tunnel, on the thin walkway beside the shadowed watercourse a young man sat huddled, knees against his chest, pressed against the stone wall in anguished fear.

Then he saw Ayika step into view and he gasped in panic. He scrabbled to hide some object behind him.

"Get back! You're not with them are you?! I can't let them find me!" His voice was weak and erratic, worn down by weeks of fear.

Ayika didn't answer. She gently lowered Mizumi down onto the cool stones beside the running water, managing to be careful even as her arms almost gave out from weariness. Distantly, Ayika noticed that one of her sleeves and the side of her dress were now covered in blood. Bits of flame licked across the flowing water. Faintly, a thick red droplet fell from Ayika's hand into that current. Then she stood up and looked at the young man hiding underground.

"None of the Masks can find you. Gold Toad honors his deals well, and you asked to make sure they could not. No spirit can find you, Tian."

The young man froze. "You know who I am?" Ma'er's missing assistant was a pitiful sight. He cheeks were sunken and from the drooping under his eyes he hadn't slept in days. He yelled out horsily, "How do you know my name?! And who's that?"

The sound of clicking metal feet told her that Scissors-Man had followed her down. Apparently spirits could still be shown where Tian was. As always, there was a loophole. But that still didn't matter. None of it did. She still had things she needed to say. Tian continued to cower before her.

"You broke into the school. You wore the white mask. You killed Professor Lizhen." These were no longer questions, she'd pieced it together long ago but it was necessary that some things be spoken; they needed to be said to be real.

Tian let out a single sob, sinking further into his bony knees. "No! Yes! I didn't...I got in the office and suddenly there was something else controlling me. I was...I was undercover with the nationalists. They'd asked me to steal it back, what Master Ma'er had taken, so they could destroy it, stop anyone from purifying it. I didn't get a chance to tell Ma'er before they sent me and then...Then I...That mask...I... They didn't tell me it was going to get stronger!"

"I doubt they even knew." It was an accident. The consequence of three forces all trying to control a power they didn't fully understand for aims that didn't take the others' plans into account. Huitzlan, Erliao, and Tailang; they'd all destroyed themselves. Chen Lizhen had just been collateral damage.

Tian frowned, recognition finally flitting across his face. "Wait, I know you. At Lizhen's school, and then at the meeting in the harbor. You were there!"

"Where's the mask, Tian?"

He shook his head, muttering to himself. "I got rid of the other. The white one. The one they gave me. It was...It was watching me. But this one...I, I thought it might be important. Important to stopping it all. But it just made things worse! I tried to take it down here, to the dark and the water, to protect Master Ma'er, protect my family, but something went wrong. It went crazy and, I think bad stuff happened up there. Outside this tunnel." Tears were in his eyes. "I didn't mean to... I tried to stop it. I really did." He was broken; a lost young man trying to fight spiritual influences beyond his understanding. It looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

Ayika breathed out. "I know you did."

Tian reached to his side and now held a large, thick, wooden mask clutched in his hands. It was unpainted, carved of a deep dark material from the bones of some tropical tree. Ayika had seen it on the body of the Ambassador paraded in his funeral procession. Or, she supposed, she'd seen a duplicate, another one of Huitzlan's tricks. The mask was heavy; the anchor of a hungry ghost empowered to godhood by sacrifices of gold and iron and blood. To Ayika's eyes it warped the world even in this boy's hands.

Ayika felt the pounding in her head. She remembered her dreams; the giant made of fire. This artifact ached to be burned, for the funeral ritual to be complete and the ghost to be pacified. It called out to the fire that the living once wielded control over. Naruhama stood across the worlds, torn apart into soul and ghost, unable to continue on to reincarnation. Ayika imagined she could hear those anguished, silent cries. She now realized that Lizhen's Fire Nation funeral burning charm had been left up in the square in the pocket of Mizumi's coat. But she also knew it wasn't worth going back for. Not tonight.

Ayika held out her hand towards Tian and the death mask.

"Give it to me. I'll get rid of it."

Tian looked away from it, back up at Ayika. "No. It...I have dreams. There has to be something special. If it's destroyed before..."

"Give it to me."

To Ayika's ears she repeated those words in the same flat, weary tone, but Tian flinched and looked at her with widening eyes. It was not the Scissors-Man spirit who brought on this fear, he was still far behind her at the entrance. This boy was afraid of her. But that didn't matter.

After a long moment, Tian slowly, shakily rose to his feet. He was much taller than Ayika but he was still huddled and wretched as if she towered over him. He held forth Naruhama's mask.

She grabbed it. It felt like heavy wood. It felt normal.

"Thank you. Ma'er is out there somewhere looking for you. I think your family thinks you're dead." Her mouth was making these sounds without her thought, but Tian heard something in there.

Then she blinked and he was gone. Time had raced forward again. Ayika was alone in the tunnel beside the dark flowing water. The spirit of her childhood belief watched her with quiet, amused attention. Mizumi lay silently on the damp stones.

Ayika held the heavy mask in her hands. She was so tired. Professor Lizhen had been an expert on funeral rituals from many different lands. He would have recognized this mask for what it was instantly and he would have known the precise forms to compleat the ritual, pacifying the ghost and reuniting it with the soul of his dead friend, the ambassador. He'd waited until after the setting sun, he'd arranged authentic charms and instruments, and he'd said the right words. Ayika knew none of those. But tonight, when the worlds were pulled together on their screaming path, anything was ritual. Anything was possible.

Even something new.

Ayika pressed the mask to her face and her heart reached out to drag the burning god into her soul.

...


	65. Service

...

The god mask was on her face and from behind her heart Ayika felt the burning fires of the Lower Ring. She felt the wound in the fabric between the worlds, a widening circle of corruption that spread steadily outward across a larger and larger area of the city. She saw the ghosts and spirits spilling across the border, swirling through the material world without rule or direction. She heard the screams and cries of ten times ten thousand people as conflict and anger and fear rose with the otherworldly pressure against their souls. Here and for fifty kilometers around her the city was thrashing in pain, but beyond that influence great Ba Sing Se still sprawled out even further. The endless rings curled out into the night and on the far side of the city no whisper of this chaos had even reached them. Out in the vast belt of cropland that fed the metropolis, farmers slept without even knowing Islanders had ever come to settle within the outer walls.

Ayika saw this all as her mind battled a living flame.

Burning power pushed against her and she stood firm like stone, her feet rooted to the earth. The force of worlds swirled around her and she swirled with it like water, carrying it and guiding it. Might came to challenge her and she submitted, then she turned and forced it to submit to her. An eternity passed and Ayika opened her eyes to the dark tunnel of the underground tunnel beside the water. She was alone among the damp stones. Then she opened another kind of eyes.

Ayika saw the dark glimmer of the flowing water and the dim brick walls. At the same time, with a sense beyond sight she also saw into another land past this one, a shadowy world of light behind the air. The impossible vision shimmered before her, a nearby distance where a new expanse grew. The spirit world was a reflection of the material world, just as the reverse was also true. A second city unfolded in the dark.

There were massive building-trees with window-spotted branches that reached the sky. The streets were made of wood and shadow, while drifting palaces of grey mist carried roofs of sparkling stone. The bridges were woven of stories and the lanterns hung from poles of spun intention. All around Ayika, wonders and phantasms swirled and changed in brilliant colors beyond any painter's pallet beneath a sky of melted motionless lightning.

This was the spirit world and there was a man sitting on the ground beside her in an impossible urban meadow. The mask was no longer on her face. There was no more blood on her hands. She was whole. And yet the truer pain still remained, deep and dull.

Ayika looked to her side and was not surprised to see the elderly man with a pointed white beard dressed in rich robes of red and gold. His wrinkled skin held the same golden blush as Mizumi's.

She knew him. "Hello, Ambassador Naruhama."

The soul of the old man looked up at her from his seated lotus position. He smiled. "Please, call me Aza. In such an intimate meeting as this I think we can dispense with formalities. I believe my ghost is imprisoned inside your body at the moment." He patted the ground beside him, offering Ayika a seat with casual courtesy.

She was exhausted and dizzy. Her thoughts weren't working right but she decided to comply and then suddenly, without any intervening motion she was sitting cross-legged on the dark earth. Here in this other world intent and action were blurred together. As she shifted her weight Ayika noticed that there was something buried under the top layer of dirt, a substrate of something that shifted. It clinked like metal or stone.

"What is...?"

Aza Naruhama waved one of his hands. "Do not worry about that yet. Someone is trying to get your attention in a very presumptuous manner. They think that if they spend decades setting up a sequence of events then that nullifies the choice of all involved. Spirits often forget what it means to be human. Even those who once were."

Ayika made an uncertain grunt that set the dead Islander chuckling quietly. Around them, a multitude of varied spirits were starting to gather, alighting in glades and alleys. Some were made of wood, others of water, still others of sunlight or fur. They'd come to watch the two people; one living, one dead.

She furrowed her brow at the growing shifting semicircle of a rainbow audience. It was hard to think here, and back in that dark stone tunnel there was something she could not bare to think of. Distantly she knew she was in terrible pain but she couldn't feel it. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be dead. This wasn't so bad.

Gesturing at the spirits that surrounded them, Ayika said, "What do they see that's so interesting? Is it just that we're humans?"

Naruhama tilted his head as he raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps. But we currently are both more interesting than even that. Try looking again."

"What..." Then Ayika's view flickered and she was sitting beside a giant, dark and burning, clad in paper manacles and obsidian. The monolith of fire towered over her. This was the Naruhama who's influence was feared. This was the burning ghost god that had ripped open the barrier in the world. This was the power she had come to stop. Beside something like that she was nothing.

But then Ayika looked down at herself and though she was a tiny figure beside the towering hulk, within her translucent human form there was a core of shining burning light, a pale blueish green like pure jade. It was like a jewel. That tiny point was still strong. Then her sight shifted back to what passed for normal in the spirit world.

She breathed out. Off in the distance, unconcerned with the intrusions and visitors, a monumental castle carved out of a mountain stretched its legs to go roaming across fields beneath clouds that bled rainbows like lightning. The spirit world was not for living human souls. Inside it, Ayika was just one more leaf bobbing in the storm. But now she felt the storm move around her as she stayed still.

She turned back to Naruhama, now a kindly faced old man once again. He nodded in recognition of the vision she'd seen. She tried to nod back but as she did so Ayika felt the weariness wash through her. She sagged and almost collapsed. She was so tired and her task was still before her. It was hard to remember why she even cared.

Her voice was almost a whisper. "Can I do it? Can I undo..."

Naruhama said, "At this moment, young lady, there is very little that is beyond your capability."

She remembered the words of other spirits. "But everything has a cost."

He sighed. "Yes, it does. In this world as in the other. For now, we are one. You have taken into yourself the power that Huitzlan and my deluded countrymen imparted to me. You can use that power for whatever purpose you wish. It is entirely in your hands. It is your choice."

Even separated from her flesh Ayika felt another wave of exhaustion from her distant body that told her that time was limited. She'd managed to bring Naruhama's soul and ghost together within herself, but no living human was meant to hold that much power. Whatever shaman gifts Ayika had were stretched to their limit. The strain was probably killing her.

"Right. I suppose I have to-"

"Honorable priest, I am compelled to convey a suggestion." A heavy, hissing voice called out from the growing crowd of spirits.

Ayika snapped her attention upwards to see rows of glowing foxes and shadowed wooden women parting to reveal the rich antique robes of Blind Dog Lord, his withered eyeless head rising above the throng. Ayika sighed, her voice tinged with bitter anger. "I thought I sent you away."

The ancient spirit bowed his head in uncharacteristic humility. "Yes. And I have been sent back to you. I am here under higher order."

"Ha!" Ayika laughed at the ridiculousness. She'd heard enough stories from Grandma Aka to know that excuse was absurd. "Don't lie to me! Even in the Spirit World this is still the City! We're well within of your court's domain. You're the chief city god here. Who could possibly order you?"

But Blind Dog Lord only bowed deeper. Suddenly Ayika felt an invisible power press down against her. It came from every angle and sent her trembling to the very border of existence. It was not pain, or force, but only mind-shattering _attention_. It was the sense that something saw her, and that something **KNEW**.

Then the pressure of terrible understanding withdrew as suddenly as it had arrived. Ayika was left with only the impression of a mind that stretched behind the horizon and was made of ten thousand units of ten thousand parts, each a universe of thought on their own. It was a mind of Brick and Stone and Humanity. In the spirit world the ground beneath Ayika flexed and distantly in the back of her awareness she could have sworn that it did the same in that dark tunnel of the material world.

Ayika recognized what that sensation of focus was. She knew that force. She'd loved it and marveled at it since she was a child. She knew what power had issued the order to Blind Dog Lord, who ranked above him. She whispered in disbelief of her own words;

"Ba Sing Se. The city. The city itself is a god." She laughed in sick humor. "Ha, a city god."

Blind Dog Lord cocked his eyeless head to the side. "Do not sound surprised. I told you that everyone has superiors. And mine has been working diligently to arrange an opportunity for one of their ancient allies. One you have been close to all your life."

Ayika's soul form was jostled again as once more the ground beneath her flexed and buckled. In the meadow before her a large expanse of dark soil bulged up under the scattering crowd of spirits and rose into a tall new hill before falling down again into fresh valley in the same undulation. There was something huge buried under the ground, something bound in chains with links of carved stone that were briefly revealed by a small landslide of dirt.

"How...?" she began to ask.

Then Ayika's awareness widened in a disorienting rush of reply to her unspoken question. The disturbance stretched out through the strange spirit landscape of melded city and forest. There were undulating coils chained beneath the ground for distance beyond comprehension. Then at the edge of the horizon a massive head rose up from the earth and in the space twisting properties of this world Ayika saw it clearly as if from two paces away.

She saw the ancient beard of a forest of withered reeds, she saw the pointed teeth of water smoothed rocks the size of bridges, and the strength of mightily currents formed into undulating muscles beneath chains of stone and metal. She looked into the shimmering eye larger than an Islander ship and knew that she was looking face to face with the spirit of the Kuang River, chained and divided through the city. The spirit of a gift used and regulated to an extent that many city dwellers had forgotten it existed. Then that eye closed and the great spirit sank back into the deep sleep that had consumed centuries.

She whispered. "The river. The Kuang."

"Yes. The river, bound and chained. It is the true task, here at the heart of everything."

Then Blind Dog Lord raised his arms hidden deep in their voluminous sleeves and began to chant. "And now you near the end of the path. You hold the power." Breath hissed into his fanged mouth. "Daughter of Water. Heart of Jade. Priest of the City. Fulfill your purpose. Perform for us all the unbinding of the Kuang spirit. The people of the city have forgotten her and so killed her. We gods of the city rise and fall as one, and so we have fallen. But here and now you can complete the ritual of broken chains. All the pieces have been assembled and you can write the final stroke. That is your role, as it is my role to ask of you. Complete the ritual and let the spirit of the river once more touch the minds of humanity."

These words hung in the air like a choir of golden bells. The gathered spirits waited.

Silence stretched.

"My purpose? All the pieces have been assembled?" Ayika heard her own voice and was astonished by the chill. Beside her, Naruham's head slowly lowered in embarrassment or anger. Ayika slowly stood on shaking knees and confusion gave way to fire as she confronted the spirits which surrounded her. "What do you... No. Me, with Naruhama's ghost mask, that stream, and blood from...This is all part of a _plan_? Some abstract goal of a... of a metaphor?"

No expression could be read on the lord spirit's withered eyeless face. "Symbol and truth, cause and effect are one and the same. The human world forgot and so forged those chains, break them here and they will remember. Spirituality will slowly return and the humans will remember us again, one by one, the way they used to. They will return to the temples and in doing so will cause us to have never left. The importance might not be immediately obvious to you but-"

Fury rose within Ayika's chest like fire. "Are you saying that you gods planned that?" There was power and rage burning in her words. "This war was some sort of ritual to save your own hides? You planned the Masks?! You planned Huitzlan and Erliao and Tailang?! You planned for the murder of Naruhama, and of Lizhen, and of... You planned for...!" Her voice broke over the tragedy she could not name and so she screamed;

"All of this chaos and sorrow?! You spirits planned this?! ALL TO _USE_ THIS _POWER_?!"

Above her, the clouds of the spirit world darkened and swirled. The ground trembled. Beside her, Aza Naruhama's form began to fade away as flames began to lick across Ayika's skin. Even the distant sense of the all-consuming spirit of Ba Sing Se was driven back. Ayika's body still wore the Ghost Mask and she held the power of the god within her. The crowd of spirits shuddered as the ground cracked beneath her feet. Her view shifted and warped, suddenly she was looking down on Blind Dog Lord and the other spirits barely reached up to her waist. And still Ayika rose taller and taller as the burning power of rage and anguish filled every particle of her being. Distantly she felt the waves of exhaustion from her physical body pass through her again but now they could not touch her fury or her strength. The absurdity of this story was her fuel.

She'd lost so much and now, for once in her life, she was strong.

The crown of spirits scattered and fled. Alone, Blind Dog Lord stood before her, whipped by wind and tossed by cracking ground. But he was not cowed, though he looked up at the giant form of a shaman raging with the power of a tortured god. There was a hiss of air as he opened those withered jaws once more.

"Yes, child, it was planned. And it was chance beyond our control. We spirits saw that you would be here, and so we set out to bring you here. The spirits of the masks feared you being here, and so in their rage they paved your path. You are part of the ritual of the river, which is cast by Ba Sing Se.

He spread his arms against the gale as fire and wind ripped at his spectral robe. "But this great city is part of the ritual of the world which is just one small component in the ritual that powers the grand cycle of existence. And that entire eternal cycle is a ritual cast by the tiny, limitless act of two young women holding hands on a roof by the light of fireworks. Even for those bound to the wheel, choice still matters. It is all that matters."

Ayika held out her massive hand that was now more vast that a city block. Her soul burned in glorious pain and she knew that her material body would fail soon. But while this power lasted she could reach out and destroy even a spirit god. She could turn and do battle with the grand spirit of the Impenetrable City. She could rage and fight against anything in existence and she might even win. She could get vengeance for this cruelty and nonsensical, meaningless torture. She could exact any punishment she might desire, in this world or the other, against all those proud fools who'd toyed with all their lives. She could crush them for what they'd done to her and to everyone she loved.

But she would not.

Then Ayika was small and trembling once more, standing before the looming shadow of Blind Dog Lord. Tears ran down her brown cheeks and her hands were clutched into fists at her sides both here in her soul form and across the worlds in her body. She said quietly, "Will unbinding the river spirit or whatever you want stop all this? The trouble between the worlds? Give Naruhama and all the others peace? You're not going to flood the Bed or something? I don't even know what this means."

The spirit god bowed his eyeless canine head to her, rough grey fur shifting slightly in the gentle breeze. "No more destruction will come. It is a ritual of freedom. Water to sooth the fires, and a river to soften stone. Aza Naruhama of the Fire Nation will be released in the process and his power will fade, righting the disturbance between the worlds. To the human world the only change will be a measure of peace returning to unquiet minds. Anything left, we gods will deal with out of our own authority. Everything has a cost."

"Right. Whatever." Ayika felt dizzy and light, to her blurring vision the spirit world and the tunnel under the Lower Ring were starting to merge once more. That was where Mizumi lay and soon Ayika would be able to go back to her. She was so tired. But in the face of all these meaningless machinations beyond her control there was one last thing she still had to ask.

"Why me?" It was almost a sob. "Why some nothing water tribe girl far from her homeland? Why a foreigner? Why not one of your own people; someone who belongs?"

Blind Dog Lord looked down at her with an eyeless stare. "Because that _is_ you. Born to the land of earth, raised between walls of stone, master of all the brick streets. Her waters are in your veins, your bed is in her grave, and now you stand, empowered, under stone at the banks of her flow as fire drips from your fingers. You are Ayika of Ba Sing Se, birthed in the river's bones. You are the daughter of this city. This is your home and we are all your people, from now until the reforging of the world." Those words were simple. And for once she knew they were true.

He stepped backwards and that lord of the shadowed courts bowed down to the child of immigrants and the Bed. The other spirits bowed still lower, feather, claw, and bone all reaching to touch the floor of this spectral land. They bowed before Ayika.

Blind Dog Lord whispered, "Now, make us in your debt."

Ayika closed her spiritual eyes. She could feel the soul and ghost of Naruhama contained together within her frail heart. It was shadow and fire and tortured power. She didn't know how to do any of this, but she knew what she intended. Hopefully, here that would be enough. Tonight, they said intent was ritual. She reached out with her exhausted will and seized the single touch of the divine in the heart of the inferno.

In the dark tunnel under the burning Lower Ring, slow drops of cooling blood seeped down to the smoothly flowing surface of the hidden aqueduct. That line of water reached out in both directions, forming a web across hundreds of overbuilt kilometers until finally the canals, sewers, and drains converged to deposit their abused contents together once more behind the river wall in the Harbor. At the foot of that wall, beneath the vaulted supports of those watercourses, beneath the maligned river, sat the house in which Ayika was born. The life of the river was also hers, in both imprisonment and in freedom. It was part of the life of the city. It was not the life she cared about, but it was one she could save.

Ayika looked out through the merging veil between worlds and saw all this. She didn't know what it meant but she decided that she didn't need to. She was so tired. Then she reached out with a burning hand and broke the stone chains.

The canals awoke in fire.

...

Nia Mua made her stand on the bank of the canal. She was breathing heavily, trying to disguise the way her hands now shook when she used her waterbending. Douli Ma'er had been fighting beside her with skill beyond that of any soldier but by now he was flagging too. That grey hair spreading from his temples had been earned naturally and it now showed though still he managed to keep up with Nia, a bender over ten years his junior. Nia swept her hand and a slicing jet of water whipped out at a golden-aura cloaked Mask who just barely dodged out of the way. Then it didn't dodge of the heavy paving stone that came plummeting down out of the sky a moment later.

Duoli Ma'er trusted her in a fight. Nia liked that. She just wished this all didn't feel hopeless. The ghosts and the wild spirits might be driven away but Masks never stopped and they only grew stronger. Nia had tried to trace the center of the disturbance in the city like Ayika had shown capable of doing but the shaman instead found herself drawn into fight after useless fight.

Protecting the populace like this was a fools errand, the constant influence of the hungry ghosts and untied spirits influenced people's minds and turned them against each other. Any group of citizens she and Ma'er saved was just another potential mob or stampede. They were all going to be torn apart. No, the only hope here was to exact bloody revenge on those who ruined this city. As soon as she stopped panting.

Nia held out her hand to briefly lean against the building wall by this canal and regain her breath. Then she coughed on the smoke that hung thick in the air and remembered that they all might burn to death instead. She smiled, it was nice to have some uncertainty in life.

Ma'er was suddenly standing beside her again. Nia silently cursed at her own surprise. That man could move quietly when he wanted to. He could also punch in a way to bring an entire apartment building crumbling down with magical power which was nice too. He looked over at Nia and said:

"We should get back to the barricades. It's about time for another attempt to advance them, and I believe we've pushed this group of Masks back. Or at least re-aimed them in another direction away from the bulk of civilians here. It's like herding beasts."

She waved her hand and gave him a sarcastically flirting wink as she breathed heavily to regain her energy. "Yeah, yeah, I'll hurry up, mister business. I just-"

"Nia!"

She abruptly seized up and collapsed at the waist in a spasm. It felt like she'd just been slammed by an incredible wave crashing into her. Nia ignored Ma'er's attempts to help as best she could as she searched wide-eyed for some explanation for this. As far as she could tell an unstoppable curtain of spiritual energy had just washed over the entire city. It was terrifying and exhilarating. It was fire and shadow beyond this world, now put to focused use.

Ma'er was on guard too, fearing some attack that the shaman's collapse might signal, until he suddenly froze at an unexpected sound. Nia Mua was laughing.

"Ha ha ha!" There were tears in the corners of her red eyes, irritated by the smoke.

Ma'er growled at her as he looked around, checking the dark corners and secret ways. "What? What did you sense?"

Nia continued to laugh, so hard that she was almost out of breath to speak. "I've got no idea! With power like that we're either saved or we're all going to die!"

To a shaman's senses the world was painted on a sheet of fabric and now that curtain had been shaken. Something was changed. Nia looked up and saw an ancient specter nearby, nearly inhuman in form. It suddenly straightened up as if it felt a pleasant breeze on what had once been its face. Those wavering appendages ceased their grasping and were instead held outstretched in welcome as the ghost began to fade and dissolve into the night air. It might have even smiled.

Nia grinned at the confused and concerned Ma'er. "It looks like the brat managed it! I'll be damned if Ah know how, but she..."

Then Nia could see past Ma'er to the dark canal that intersected the terminus of this dead-end street. A massive spectral shape rose out of the black water, forming a bulging wave while at the same not disturbing the still surface of the canal at all. The curtain of phantasmal water parted and it ran down a bulge of muscle and scale to reveal a huge shimmering eye that looked straight into Nia's heart. The breath caught in her throat and then the unimaginable spirit sank down again into the canal, leaving only black smooth water reflecting the low-hanging clouds, orange with the light of the fires across the ring. A faint sensation, like a gentle calming sound, hung in the cool air.

A rough hand grasped hers. "Nia!" Ma'er shook her out of her daze.

Nia blinked and looked back up at him. "Ok, I have _absolutely_ no idea what that's about." Then she just laughed again. She couldn't help it.

Light drops of rain began to sprinkle down onto her cheeks. Then a screeching, savage roar echoes out over the endless forest of rooftops.

Ma'er, still very unnerved, said, "It sounds like the Masks are still out there."

"Yes. But now they'll be weak. That's one hell of an exorcism and it'll have hit them too." Nia's lips curled back in a predatory grin. She'd found within herself another well of energy to draw from. She actually had hope. "So now we hunt us some Masks. I believe ya said that was your specialty. So, mister man, lead the way. I think they'll bleed now."

They ran forward together. Gentle curtains of rain came to fall as in the air above the city an apparition of fire bloomed into existence, flitting across the wide rings of roads, buildings, and towers as it danced.

...


	66. Reward

...

Xinfei ran back under the smoke choked sky towards another one of the ad hoc barricades. It had been hours now of random Mask attacks and sudden bouts of madness sweeping the crowds on both sides of the defenses. But all of a sudden there was something strange and tight in the air. He still had no idea where Ayika and Mizumi were, and hadn't seen Mua in ages. He'd lost them. And now someone had just told him that a regiment of city guards had approached from the secure side of this little safe zone they'd managed and decided to demand that the protective barricades be torn down.

Xinfei didn't even know why people were telling him this. He just had the black headband and now people were looking at him with something sickeningly like hope. How these ring-dwellers even knew what the hell the Black Bands were was also a mystery, but Xinfei ran back to the barricade all the same.

Lili ran along beside him, panting heavily and smeared with soot like the rest of the people who'd been trying to fight the fires. However, while the other citizens they passed on the street looked bedraggled and half dead, with a single wet rag Lili had managed to smoothly wipe away the blackening smoke on her cheeks and forehead, leaving her face with strategic patches that on her looked like fierce warpaint. Truthfully, Xinfei had accepted his odd elevation to mock leadership mainly to act as a mouthpiece for Lili's constant stream of orders and directives. All his own ideas came out jumbled and confused but somehow Lili could turn that nonsense into actual well phrased plans that the panicked citizens seemed to want to follow.

Ahead down the street, there was a crowd of worried people bunched up before the jumbled pile of tables, wagons, and unhinged doors. The locals peered over the barricade and murmured with worry. However this didn't sound like the kind of fevered, involuntary anxiety that usually signaled an upcoming wild spirit attack so Xinfei couldn't muster the energy to care about their feelings. Guided by a rather excessive amount of practice received tonight he let his running momentum carry him up a mountain slop of table legs and slanted dressers to the summit of the crude fortification in a few bounds. He briefly turned back to lend Lili a hand up. On the other side of the crude wall were fifteen angry city guards with a lot of rather sharp weapons.

"Hey guys!" Xinfei called down, having quickly learned the importance of maintaing control of these kinds confrontations. These were not the first guards they'd encountered tonight but for the most part the others were willing to leave well enough alone once they saw their job was half done for them. "The hot zones are inwards and north! Inspector Yang and Public Safety've been fighting a big group of Masks up there and would appreciate the reinforcement! Yellow Mountain street just over there should be clear and then it's a straight shot up to the branch canal."

Unfortunately, this time the guard in the most authoritatively embellished uniform was not happy with Xinfei's assistance. "I don't care about any masked hooligans! I've got orders to clear the streets and this is a clearly illegal blockage! Tear it down this instant or my men will begin enforcing penalties!"

"This barricade is the only thing keeping these people even slightly safe! There's spirits and freaking possessed berserkers raging around!"

"Spirits?! Forget spirits! I'm here, I'm real, and I will be obeyed!"

Xinfei groaned and began muttering an inaudible stream of curses. This man was behaving unreasonably. But then again, Xinfei could feel it too. The fear and anger that swirled in his head and made it difficult to think straight, even when the spirits weren't nearby. It came in waves but it was always there somewhere tonight. Ayika had said that it was the influence of the hungry ghosts and the Fire Sage's ritual twisting people's thoughts. Xinfei hadn't any ghost but he still knew that times of crisis always bred more crisis. Those guards down there were just as likely break and panic as the savage rioting crowds he'd seen outside the other barricades.

Lili joined balanced herself with a hand on Xinfei's shoulder as she called out, "Captain! Please! This area has regained order but there are many places out there still being torn apart by fighting!" She was trying to make her voice gentle and pleading, possibly hoping to appeal to some protective instinct in the commanding guard.

The captain squinted up at her. "Is that a Middle Ring accent? Miss, what are you doing out here when the gates are closed?"

"Is that really what you want to be asking right now?! Are there not any more pressing concerns? Are you really that stupid?!" Well, Lili's attempt to be gentle hadn't lasted long. She had to be at least as tired as Xinfei felt.

Still, he clapped his hand to his brow in frustration as Lili whispered him a quick apology. On the other side of the barricade the captain bristled and fumed even as most of his men nervously thumbed their sword-hilts, looking doubtfully at their commanding officer and the blocked street like they might agree with Lili's assessment of their priorities.

The captain, however, was incensed. Red cheeked, he yelled out. "This barrier is getting torn down! Men, forward! Any citizen still out in the street when we get past is to be instantly arrested!"

His men took a step forward, their boots thudding on the paving stones. Xinfei's breath caught in his chest. That was when the two Masks came dashing down a connecting street.

The glowing possessed men leapt and charged like a stampede of bulls, fueled by impossible spiritual strength. Lili tried to call out but the first warning the gathered guards received was a flying wooden door wheeling through the air to plow through their back line. The locals started throwing projectiles from the stacked piles of broken bricks they'd gathered. Such attacks couldn't even hurt the Masks through their spirit auras but past clashes had proved that such efforts provided enough mild annoyance to sometimes drive the possessed abominations away to seek easier entertainment elsewhere.

Xinfei felt his head reeling in the screaming and shouting. Ordinary people were standing up against monsters with bricks and bits of wood. It was inspiring. However, it wasn't working. The panicked and confused guards had a few earthbenders in their ranks who's panicked attempts to muster an even fight attracted the Mask's interest again. At least they managed to do so for the few seconds that the benders remained upright against this spiritual assault. Lili clutched at Xinfei arm but she did not scream as the front bender crumpled down onto a curb.

Those two Masks tore into the guard's formation. Men were flung left and right, smashing into the closed shutters of buildings on each side. But just as quickly they began the monsters suddenly halted. For no obvious cause, those spirit wrapped men stopped in a single instant and both turned to look off to the north. A soft mist of rain began to fall from the black clouds above, darkening the paving bricks that lay within the pools of lamplight.

The world breathed in through the sudden silence.

Then there was another light in the air above them. A noiseless sound like a bell of silk rang inaudibly through the sky and then there was a massive figure made of flame hanging in the air higher than the roof tiles. All the combatants, human and spirit froze in wonder and terror. The fire had the form of a human, but it was at once male and female, wavering like flame over water but somehow more solid than the earth beneath their feet. This was something more than a spirit. This was a god of fire and rain reigning over this city. Xinfei thought it almost looked familiar.

Then the giant reached out its hand and the Masks shuddered. The the light winked out and the burning god was gone as if it had never been there at all.

The nearest Mask straightened up and looked down in confusion at its hand wreathed in spectral claws. There seemed to be no change. Then it shrugged and casually lashed out at the guard captain with all its force. That man raised his arms to block, knowing it was a futile effort, yet trying all the same, flinching in the face of certain death. The bone-crushing blow landed, the watching humans despaired, and then they looked up in wonder.

The captain still stood. For a moment the scene froze again as both sides marveled. It wasn't possible. Everyone had seen the Masks things punch through stone and metal. But the guard captain stood, exchanging looks of wonder with the equally astonished Mask. Then the captain hit back, sinking his fist deep into the Mask's gut. The invincible monster doubled over in impossible pain and surprise. Something had changed. That god of fire had undone their strength.

The effect spread through the streets like lightning across the sky. Two hundred heads looked up. Seemingly at once a wordless cry rose up from the people, the guards and the citizens joining together to a building sound of anger and retribution; the triumph of no longer being powerless. Xinfei was startled to hear this primal roar coming from Lili beside him and then was more surprised to notice that it was also coming from his own throat. The remaining upright Mask wavered and took a step back towards its pained companion. A new emotion was entering its inhuman mind. Fear.

The crowd took a step forward, more citizens climbing up over the ruins of the barricade. The remaining guards raised their swords, joining in the call.

Then the Masks turned to run into the night and the people of the city chased.

Xinfei moved to follow in the charge but as he raced down from the barricade he tripped and fell painfully face first down onto the stones. Lili, who was perfectly content to not chase after the spirit powered monsters, came down much more slowly and helped him up.

"Yeah, thanks," Xinfei muttered as he gingerly rubbed his scraped chin. The fighting had already vanished down the street.

Lili looked away from him as he winced at his new bruises, to hide her smile and leave the man some dignity. Instead she glanced down at her pale green opera dress. It was now more grey and black than green, marked all over with smudges of smoke and ash. She felt a prickle of sweat on her forehead again. She must have wiped off her makeup some time ago. Absently, without looking away from the apocalypse before her she said, "This makeup really doesn't stand up to this kind of treatment."

"Would that be a selling feature?" Xinfei said in the same comically calm tone; a relaxation born of pure exhaustion. "Sweat resistance? I guess even rich ladies get hot. I wonder how you'd go about assessing that. You know, I still have forty jars of that white base stuff and a secure contact for more down at the Harbor."

Here, as the city was tearing its self apart with spirits and ghosts and normal angry people, Xinfei was taking about selling makeup. Despite everything, Lili smiled. "Testing, psh. Just put out whatever claim you want on the label. There are no rules for tests like that. Especially with something as subjective as makeup it's the perception that matters most of all. People will see what they want to see. Is your stuff of good quality, though?"

He shrugged in the alternating breezes of chill night and blazing gusts that battled for dominance in this destruction driven weather pattern. A howl and a scream echoed together from deeper in the city. "Eh, how would I know? I was mostly planning on relying on the ritzy Fire Nation labels and getting them to the right Lower Ring places that wouldn't normally see stuff earmarked for the central rings. Of course, I got this load cheap because it's in irregular black jars without all of the normal decorations so I'm not sure I'll be able to convince people the product's genuine. I'm figuring I'll just mark it up double from wholesale and hope to get lucky for profit on a small number of sales."

Lili casually shook her head. "Don't bother with that. Be bold. Quintuple the price and go straight to the Middle Ring sellers. If one of my crowd saw twenty examples of the standard product and then a few strange black jars at over twice the price then you just know they'd have to buy the 'better' ones. Any shortage in stock would only work in your favor. Everyone wants to have found the newest secret."

Xinfei began to chuckle weakly, coughed on the smoke in the air, and then began to laugh harder. "I'll get right on that."

Lili grinned. "You'd better. As founding shareholder in your venture I'm expecting returns."

They still stood at the rickety barricade pile before a wall of burning city blocks. Around them and beyond their perception the fabric of the world creaked and wavered. Spirits, ghosts, and fiery gods made their mark and in the screaming streets two young people discussed the merits of a permanent retail location.

...

Douli Ma'er raced through the streets, pursuing the Masks who after the sudden appearance of that flaming apparition had quickly relearned how to flee. Ignoring the weariness in his bones he folded his had into a fist and reached out with his qi, making the stones and bricks sympathetically mirror the motions of his muscles. One sharp movement and a wall burst apart, slamming into the Mask who's silver feathered spirit aura was fading out of sight by the moment. They were still strong, but compared to a moment ago they were so very weak.

In truth, Ma'er suspected that if those possessed men could be kept distracted for a few minutes more they would no longer be a danger to the public. And never would be again. Ma'er had seen the pitted, blackened face of the last fighter they'd forcibly unmasked. This full level of spirit possession didn't seem to be survivable. These were dead men he was fighting which made this whole assault useless. That fiery apparition had done the work.

However, he was following Nia Mua. She ran through the alleys and streets pursuing the remaining Masks with a desperate fury to take this last chance at her vendetta. The soft rain bent in the air to gravitate towards her hands and streams of magical water trailed behind her, ready to be whipped forward to slice through flesh and bone the instant one of the possessed men fell within her grasp. It was a rampage. Ma'er had seen men behave like this in battle before. The pursuit of revenge was a deadly thing, often leaving the perpetrator as vulnerable as the victim. So he followed her, watching her long braided hair begin to darken in the gentle rain. In a night dominated by the dead he would not allow this woman to join them.

The dead now looked on. In the wake of that fire spirit flitting across this sector the ghosts had began to solidify even in Ma'er's sight even as they began to fade. The remaining ghosts stood at street-corners and on bridges; a grey shadow of a man staring a building, a woman looking a noodle shop, two unidentifiable visages side by side contemplating a small secluded bench, taking a last refuge in some memory as they slowly dissolved away from this world.

Then a glowing red man in a mask leaped out of an alley, aiming a clawed fist at Nia Mua. This was not the first time one of the Masks had tried a desperate final attack in this last half hour. They were like cornered beasts. Ma'er brought up his hands and bricks below the Mask's feet reached up to clamp down on its ankles as it lunged. In truth all that this interference did was pull the attacker back from the slicing arc Nia summoned into existence out of the rainy air. But the Mask did not avoid her second attack and now her floating water streams ran red once more.

Ma'er looked down at the newly still form on the ground. The spirit aura had vanished to reveal a what remained of a young man, his face bitted and blackened. No matter how many Nia struck down none of them would be Chao Erliao, the focus of her vendetta. It didn't matter, that man had been dead from the moment he had put on the mask as the ritual reached its height. But still she fought across the city.

Nia panted heavily, trying to gather energy once more. She didn't say anything to Ma'er but she'd allowed him to watch over her and that was enough. As she tried to calm the shaking of her weary muscles, Ma'er quietly regarded a ghost that was standing across the narrow street, looking back in the direction of the two of them. It had to be one of the last few that remained by now, the great hungry hordes had almost all vanished to whatever place they'd come from. This poor thing must have died very recently, as it still retained most of its human shape. He was actually still almost as recognizable as he might have been in life. In fact...

"By the..." Ma'er started to swear. He stopped. "Professor Lizhen!"

Nia Mua looked up and gasped in sudden, strangled inhalation. What an endless, meaningless pursuit and constant conflict hadn't managed now came crashing down and her knees buckled. Her dark cheeks blanched. All the anger and mocking laughter that she projected in every waking moment vanished in horror and disbelief. She was left empty, an abandoned paper kite on the ground, to be blown and dashed against the bricks by the first breath of wind. Nia took a single, wavering step forward. Then the ghost of Chen Lizhen smiled warmly at her from across the empty street and she collapsed to her knees.

She fell down before the grey shadow.

"Forgive me," she whispered to the grey shadow.

"There is nothing to forgive, my love." The reply was faint beyond hearing, the sound of gentle shafts of afternoon sun crawling across a warm floor. It was a soft breeze under starlight.

The shade of Lizhen raised his hands to each side of Nia's face. A finger's breadth and all the distance of all the worlds lay between them. The ghost spoke once more, just at edge of hearing. "Be at peace, Nia. Do not fight for me, for you've already won Do not seek absolution when you need none. You have done something wonderful tonight. This land has taken a first step towards spiritual harmony. You will be here to guide the people who need you and I will go on to the next life of adventure."

Nia choked on a sob.

Lizhen was growing harder to see. "Maybe we will meet again, and when we do I want you to be a happy. Let that be your new mission."

Nia Mua was broken. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks in joy and sorrow and relief and despair. She could not speak, shuddering in heaving breath as Lizhen faded away from this world until his rebirth. Then he was gone, the last of the remaining specters, and Nia Mua collapsed completely, pressed to the cold paving bricks in a fetal genuflection.

Douli Ma'er wanted to turn away, to allow her to hide her sorrow from him. But Nia was a strong woman and even her grief was proud. It refused to accept concealment. So he only quietly walked up to her side. She raised herself up slightly, her palms pressed to the bricks while teardrops fell down between them to mix with raindrops. Then his rough calloused hand touched down on her shoulder.

They stayed there in silence, two hunters in an empty street as around them their prey stumbled and fell, their power stripped by the magic of the city and rituals beyond their knowledge. Soft drops of rain continued to fall through the late depths of night.

...

Ayika gasped and heaved for breath as the burning funeral mask dropped from her head to shatter against the edge of the underground aqueduct. She staggered backwards, falling against the wall, too starved for air to scream at the pain from her burned face. Naruhama's mask was broken, half of it falling into the black running water while the remaining splinters smoldered quietly on the stones of the walkway. There was no more magic in the fire but the shards were still made of wood. Naruhama was gone. It was over.

Ayika's balance reeled and she slid further down against the stone wall, the back of her dress ripping slightly on some chipped protruding brick. The floor was cool. The only sound in the dark tunnel was the echoing of her sharp gasps and the faint sound of flowing water. Then there was the sound of clicking metal on stone slowly approaching her. With great effort Ayika lifted up her swimming vision to look at the Scissors-Man in his face made of blades and points. He was more solid than she'd ever seen a spirit be in this world, though the wavering nature of the walls behind him suggested that it was Ayika who'd changed. She was drawing closer to the veil even as it retreated. She thought she might be dying.

Despite her pain, she managed to gather together enough breath to speak to the spirit, spitting out her bitter words. "What do you want from me now? What more? Do you want me to steal the sun? Unbar the gates to the other world?" She sagged down again. "Do you spirits ever not use us?" The melting, wavering nature of reality around her no long seemed bothersome. She remembered what Grandma Aka had said. At the moment of death the walls between worlds were at their most thin. Her chest heaved again and again. She thought that such a crossing now might not even be that bad.

The spirit kneeled down beside where she was half propped, half sprawled against the tunnel wall. "Something like that. Yes, spirits use, and we are used in return. Everything has a cost."

He held out a hand made of scissors blades, the visualization of a frightened young girl years ago who didn't know the power of her own belief. That hand pointed off down the tunnel. He was pointing at Mizumi, laid neatly on the stones of the walkway near the exit stairs.

Scissors-Man said, "Everything has a cost. And tonight you have done those on the other side a service. One greater than you can see. The gods of this land are in your debt beyond their reckoning and the veil of reality is still thin for a few moments more. Now name your price, shaman."

The world was like paper. Ayika could see through the walls, the ground, and the water. She slowly pulled herself up to her feet, body aching and screaming in complaint. Her footsteps were staggering and uncertain. She navigated her way through two worlds, a universe of elements and energy and souls swirled before her eyes as she stood at the edge. Mizumi lay where Ayika had set her down, the threads of that gold qipao glistened under the black smudges and red stains. Locks of Mizumi's hair across her forehead were dark and tinged with the color of shining rust. The back of her hair was soaked with blood.

A clicking whisper echoed through the shadows, its speaker already gone. "Name your price."

Ayika did not kneel as she approached. She couldn't bring herself to feel hope. She could hardly bare to breath. The city lay in a web of magic and ritual and spiritual power that she didn't understand but what did any of that matter? There was only one thing that did.

She whispered to the shadows, using every shred of breath she could muster.

"Mizumi."

"Ugh," came the gentle groaning reply, earth-shattering in its simplicity. "What...Ah, ah. Ow. Well, that did hurt. What happened when...Ayika! Blood, your arm! Sit down! Did you carry me here? Let me look at you! It looks like it has dripped all down your side. And...oh, my poor thing! Your face! Did those vile Masks do this to-"

Mizumi had barely raised up to a sitting position when Ayika wrapped arms around her with enough force to bring them both down again. Everything in Ayika's body screamed out in pain but it was a glorious pain beyond anything she had ever known.

"Ayika!" Mizumi winced as the tight hug held her down onto the ground, Ayika's face pressed against her chest. "Ah, this, this quite hurts. I believe I may have been more injured that I thought. Ooh, blood in my hair. That may explain the headache. Ayika, please, let me look at you. Your face is burned and your entire left arm is covered in blood!"

Ayika couldn't bring herself to say anything yet. All she could do was squeeze yet tighter and feel the sweet, wonderful pain of Mizumi's dress against her raw cheek. Everything had a cost and she would gladly pay for this moment.

...

It was still dark as Ayika and Mizumi walked along the deserted city streets through a drifting, rain-like mist that fell down from the dense clouds above. However, by now there was a growing lightness to the world. There was no sign of a source but their vision had slowly become a little clearer; the lines in the shadows a little sharper. Somewhere beyond the city walls, above the gentle storm, the sun was beginning to rise.

They were alone here in these scorched blocks of the Lower Ring. Population and fire were both departed and soft precipitation hung in the air, consuming the sound of the two women's footsteps to leave only silence and hush. Those little droplets drifted this way and that in their gradual decent. The rain cleaned the air as it floated, scrubbing it free of the choking smoke and leaving a clammy predawn chill. Ayika held onto Mizumi and felt the glorious, unbelievable heat of life flowing from her hand. In her own state of exhaustion that was all she could do.

Mizumi looked around, her eyes straining in the near blackness to make some sense out of the charred exposed ribs of extinguished buildings on each side. "So..." she said. "We succeeded? It is over? I do not hear anything, is that a good sign?"

Ayika gave a barely perceptible shrug which at her current capabilities threatened to bring her to to the ground. Mizumi hurried to hold her up until it was clear she wasn't going to collapse. "I don't know, " Ayika answered after a moment. "I'm assuming it is, and if it's not then some other idiot can take over. We're done."

Mizumi hadn't asked what had happened after her last memory of the confrontation with the Masks and now she still resisted. Instead she craned her head to look around again. "All right. On a different note, do you happen to know which direction this is? I cannot see the city walls and even if the sun is indeed rising I cannot tell east from west under these clouds."

"We'll run into someone eventually. It's the city. You're never really alone." Ayika smiled ever so slightly and then gave a shallow gasp at the pain from the sensitive skin around the edge of her face. Mizumi turned with concern and lent more of her arm for Ayika to hang off of. However, this proved to be a little too much weight for Mizumi in her own unsteady state and they both stumbled.

"Perhaps we should rest for another moment," Mizumi offered generously, still trying to mask how heavily she herself was breathing. Just ahead, the narrow street arced over a canal and as they came up to that point they both leaned back against the stone pilings that marked the bridge's edge.

Both women were on their way to being soaked in the cold tail-end of night. Mizumi said, "I suppose that we are heroes now. Or, more correctly, you are. Not that I think there would be many who might believe the account. I barely understand it myself."

Ayika breathed in and felt the chill air fill her lungs. "We're not supposed to understand. I don't think anyone really does." She looked out at the black water of the canal, choked with soot and ash and shadow, now effectively a void that stretched below them into infinity. "For politics, for spirits, for just... life, there's too many moving parts. Everyone thinks they know how their story goes, and thinks there's a consistency; a plan. But there's no plan. No one in control. It's all just accidents." Her voice trailed off into weariness.

Mizumi turned her head to face Ayika who in turn looked up at her. "Yes," she said very simply. "And I am quite a fan of accidents. Accidents have a meaning. After all, I never planned to meet you."

They were side by side, each with a single hand pressed down on the smooth stone railing for support.

Ayika murmured, "I don't know if Xinfei and Xiaobao are still alive. The whole city could've burned down for all we know. I don't really remember much of from when..." She trailed off unable or unwilling to turn her thoughts to the spirit world now.

Mizumi nodded, "My father could be lying in the rubble of the Exclusionary district. And yet for some reason I cannot bring myself to feel fear about that for the moment. I think I may have exhausted that emotion. But we will be returned to the real world soon enough. We will see what awaits us there."

Ayika angled her head up a little more to maintain eye contact, wondering when Mizumi had drawn so very close to her. She could feel her breath. "And what's that going to be?"

"I do not know. But we will find out."

They leaned together. The touch was pain and exhaustion; a tired desire for support and comfort. It was exhilaration and desperation; yearning and fear and disregard for everything that was yet to come. It was fire and water; sky and stone. For a single brief moment they even forgot to breath. Neither could have said for how long.

Then their lips came apart. Nothing perceptible about the light had changed but somehow everything was clearer to see. Somewhere above the clouds the sun had risen over the vast and tangled expanse of the Impenetrable City.

...

Senior Minister for Capital Urban Governance Tianyou Zhu resisted the urge to reach forward and adjust the small stack of documents that were neatly set out on the table before him. Technically, all this information must be on hand to present should it be required of him, but in fifteen years of holding this office that had never come up at one of these meetings. Even if the papers were crucial, it would be an incredible breach of decorum to for him move out of turn during the monthly presentation of affairs to Kui, the King of Kings of Earth Under Heaven. Tianyou just wished that this ceremony could be done in less than four hours. He was wilting before the mountain-like mass of of gold and jade that loomed behind the king.

The long table of ministers stretched out to his left in a row of identical place settings with unused brushes, untouched ink-stones, and pristine stacks of documents before bearded men in varied robes of identical finery. To his right the line stretched even further. The outer walls of the throne room vanished into the same shadowed distance that consumed the ceiling supported by the endless rows of mammoth stone columns. Then the Senior Minister of Literary Consensus sat back down in his chair at Tianyou's side and he rose in turn to present an account of his own ministry.

"Mighty King of Kings of Earth Under Heaven, I come to give report of how your will has been obeyed." The proscribed opening given, Tianyou continued, inwardly thankful that the King had shortened the prelude speech early on in Tianyou's own service. The droning recitation of the classical forms had led to many instances of dozing ministers and kings. Of course, in the days of Minister Long Feng this ceremony had been dispensed with entirely but one couldn't have everything. After all, everyone knew how well that regime had worked out.

Tianyou gave his report. "In the north of the the city, the drainage channels continue to be taxed by heavier than expected rainfall, however they are still within the secondary overflow measures. Preparations for the new census next year continue apace. Related to that, Northern Undersecretary of Numeration Lord Huigang Chi has requested to be relieved of his position so that he may travel to his ancestral district in the city's west for the two hundred days of morning for his departed father Lord Chi. A new appointment will need to be made." Then Tianyou paused slightly, knowing matter what he had now come to. But he continued before anyone could notice his hesitance.

"Additionally, fifteen days ago there was a notable fire in a part of the southern city, centered in the districts known to the classics as the Kuang Folds. The blaze was suppressed, but it is suspected to be deliberate in origin rather than accidental. Reports from the Agency for the Public Safety have indicated that the arson incident precipitated from a personal dispute between the late Fire Nation Trade Mission Representative and a missing minor governmental official that spilled into the public sphere. This civil unrest was accompanied by a minor spiritual disruption that has since been contained and resolved to the satisfaction of the priestly officials."

Up on his elevated platform that stretched beyond sight to both the left and the right, King Kui leaned forward on his small ornate chair before the massive treasure-filled backdrop. "A spiritual disruption? Is it of a nature that should involve the Avatar?"

Tianyou shook his head, relieved that he had already considered this possibility. "The Senior Minister of Ritual and Observance will speak more expertly than I, but every report I have received indicates that the issue has been locally handled to the thorough satisfaction of the other world. In fact, temple attendance in that sector is up enough that the Ministry of Worship and Consecration is considering reopening several sites along the classical Kuang banks."

The King leaned back, absently adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Very well." Then another thought seemed to occur to him. "How much of the city did the fire effect?"

That figure was on the fourth sheet of paper in the neat little stack but Tianyou didn't need to look at it. "Very little, your grace. Considering all damage and disruption, zero point seven three percent of the city saw any effect. It was a minor affair."

"Regrettable in any case," the King said but he'd now moved on to other thoughts. "I suppose I shall hear more of the Fire Lord's response to that political mess from the Senior Minister for External Trade. I hope the Fire Nation gets around to appointing a new ambassador soon, it will make clearing this mess up a lot easier. At least in light of Tailang's alleged crimes they seem willing to call his death a diplomatic draw."

That was Minister Tianyou's dismissal and he gladly sat down in time to hear the Senior Minister for Local Agriculture rise in his right to give his report on the yields of the encircled lands. Tianyou was just glad he had not had any truly upsetting news to relay. These little incidents happened all the time in Ba Sing Se.

Outside the royal audience hall, in glittering foyers, the ranks of Vice Ministers conferred with the most senior of their Sub Ministers who in turn left to deliver orders to their departmental staff. In the palace halls and high ceilinged rooms beyond them, an army of butlers oversaw their legions of servants, tending to cavernous chambers that might see a single instance of use in a year. As they tended, a few had time to look out the windows to see the vast marble floored parade grounds that surrounded this monumental palace building that was itself only the gatehouse of the larger royal residences. Across those grand spaces outside, entire military battalions, the best of the best of a continent, repeated well-rehearsed formations with footsteps that rumbled in the air. In that sun-drenched white stone plain, armies larger than these could vanish.

Beyond the parade grounds were the circular Divine Walls that separated the King's palaces from the sprawling estates of the surrounding Inner Ring that stretched on through manicured garden and rolling hills to a distant terminus beyond the horizon. At that far off point here rose another circular wall to keep out the ring of uncountable rich merchants, scholars, and artists who owned, catalogued, and depicted the world. They dwelled between ring walls in twenty wide kilometers of sparkling waterways and clean streets lined with tended willows in carved stone planters overseen by dwellings of art and magnificence. Their shops and dwellings pressed right up to their own wall that led to the land of craftsmen and laborers.

In the Lower Ring apartments piled up around the edges of crowded market squares while industry and commerce boomed out constant noise and smoke into the air that trembled with the energy of millions. In each direction was an unending arching expanse of the same that slowly curved across hundreds of kilometers to meet again in a spot far enough away to feel climatic differences. This ring's residents were crowded but they were still proud because they were supported by those who dwelled beyond the city walls. Past those gates was Kuang Harbor and a hundred other limpet towns between the far stretching fields of the encircled lands that from nearly any vantage seemed endless.

Somewhere out in the distance was the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, shining white in the bright sun. On one side of that cliff of fitted stone was an entire living world. Across it was another. Through bounds ran the thin brown line of a river: strong and free.

...

...

...

(Author's Note: Thank you for reading my story. I would love to to hear any response, input, or comments you might have. Every bit of feedback is a chance to improve.)


	67. -Epilogue-

56 Years Later

...

The black car honked angrily at Jing as she walked front of it. However, once the young woman reached the cement curb she simply turned to glare at the driver and waved back to Tianzi for him to hurry up and cross the street after her. Tianzi glanced nervously in both directions at the other nearly-stalled cars before he dashed over their chosen not-entirely-legal crossing. To some degree it was those drivers' own fault, he rationalized. Driving around Kuang Harbor on the same day as this parade was frankly irresponsible. Still, Tianzi felt guilty so he touched the brim of his flat cap in apology back at the driver who he was stealing in front of. However, this just provoked another loud burst of honks and curses and Jing was already striding off around the corner sidewalk so Tianzi hurried after her.

If that last street was a parking lot, this next thoroughfare was a full army standing in close formation. The press of humanity was insane, and they hadn't even reached the parade route yet. In one direction down the street the building walls were spotted with the blue and white patterns and carved wooden eaves of that subtly defined Little Water Tribe neighborhood. Down the other way, the lampposts were suddenly decorated with metal flames indicating the historic Fire Town district. Then the light dimmed and Tianzi's eyes were briefly drawn upwards as a floating airship passed in front of the sun, casting the military's shadow down to patrol around the suburb out beyond the city wall.

"Hey, Jing," he called out before she tried to cross this next street without him. As soon as he knew she was actually going to stop for a moment he continued with some good-natured ribbing only partly fueled by true frustration. "You just had to try and get near the stage. We could have found spots along any of the streets up near Kuang Bed Park. Look at this place! It's a madhouse!"

Jing spun back, tugging down at the sides of her cloche hat as she twisted her lips to the side in mimed thought. The bottom edges of her short-cut hair curled up under her ears that peeked from the hat. "Nope," she concluded. "Still think this was a good idea. Come on, find some excitement in your soul! When are we going to get another chance to actually see the Avatar!"

"No idea. I don't know if we're going to get to see her today, now."

Jing did not have an immediate rejoinder since she could see he had a point. As she instead pouted theatrically at him, Tianzi stood up on his tiptoes to use every bit of what little height advantage he had to try and scout their route through the mob. This part of the town was absolutely packed. After a moment he nodded directionally and pointed off across the street.

"Ok, there's an alley over there that leads to Temple Street. It looks like it's stuffed full of cars now but we could get by if we squeeze and the cops probably had the far alley mouth kept open at least for a bit before they closed Temple completely. Might be a spot there with people only getting a chance to fill it un at the end."

"Sounds good." Jing concurred with his nod and followed along behind him as Tianzi struck out to ford the human sea.

It was tricky. At one point Jing almost got lost and Tianzi almost accidentally bought a souvenir photograph while waving her down. But they reached their destination in that exhaust-blackened alley and squeezed past the wide molded black steel of the wheel-wells of the first car.

"Oh wow," Jing said, looking ahead. "Talk about an eyesore. Well, we won't forget which alley we came from."

She had a point. That next vehicular obstacle was a slight departure from the dull shades of the alley and its other occupants. The car was pink. In fact it was very pink, with two big calligraphic characters printing a name in fancy script and a much smaller description of what the company actually did.

"Hey, yeah." Tianzi looked down at it. "One of those Gaoli cars. That's the get-housewives-to-sell-makeup-to-other-housewives company, right? I think they give the top sellers those cars. Probably just management though."

Jing shrugged. "I guess it's advertising for them. And if the ladies don't mind the color then, hey."

"Some women actually like pink."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Some women are wrong."

Tianzi laughed and they pushed on.

A moment later they popped free onto the banks of Temple street and discovered that even Tianzi had been overly optimistic in his assessment of the parade route. The sidewalks of the cordoned off street were completely packed, with the edge of the barricades formed into solid human battlements. People had been here saving spots for unimaginable amounts of time. On particularly prime viewing corners new civilizations had sprung, up complete with their own culture, traditions, and seating arrangements. They did not look kindly on outsiders.

The apartment buildings that mixed in with the old religious structures all had their windows flung open. People leaned out of every other portal, peering from packed rooms obviously hosting parties of people from other parts of the city. In the grand tradition of Ba Sing Se, Tianzi could only assume the guests were being charged rent. Every once and a while someone would get overexcited and throw out another premature handful of ticket tape confetti to drift down on the crowded sidewalk.

Jing blinked at this dense pack of humanity. "Ah, hmm. Maybe you were right. This looks like a failure from the start. How are we going to see her?"

Tianzi could not resist the opportunity to turn her own line back on her. "Aw, now who has no excitement in their soul?"

"Shut up."

He laughed again. "Ok, let's try and-"

Jing held up her hand absently as she looked off to the side. "No, actually shut up for a sec. I hear music."

Tianzi uncertainly turned his head back in forth. He did hear strings and brass somewhere. "Uh, yeah? And that means something to us because...?"

"Because I think I might actually know this place. I've been down around here before. Follow me."

"Jing?" Tianzi called after her but Jing was pushing through the crowd, now a woman on a mission. He had no choice but to follow after her. Luckily he kept sight on her until she squeezed off into the next alley. Unfortunately, Tianzi had to have brief and loud conversation with some man to the effect that Ba Sing Seites pushing in crowds like this was sure to be enshrined the new Confederacy constitution if it wasn't already and so was completely undeserving of this yelling, but he managed to get free and follow Jing into the alley in time to see her making her way up a set of narrow wooden stairs clinging to the side of the three story redbrick building. He could still hear music.

He looked up at Jing. "Hey, come on, that's someone's home."

She grinned down at him and struck a little pose up on the stairs. "Trust me for a second," she said with a wink.

Tianzi turned around aimlessly in the alley for a moment as he absently pushed his rolled up sleeves a little higher above his elbows. Oh well, he thought, might as well. He did want to see the Avatar.

The steps creaked alarmingly as he took them two at a time but he met Jing at the top before the whole thing managed to collapse so that all worked out. They were now stalled in front of a blank, blue painted door set into the side of a blank brick wall three stories up. Tianzi was so preoccupied determinedly not noticing how the crowded void below their narrow landing that he almost missed Jing suddenly taking a few quick primping gestures at her slim waistless dress and cheap beaded necklace strings. He was just pursing his lips to ask where they were and why she was suddenly more fashion conscious when the door abruptly opened slightly, revealing a black gap filled by a pale angular man who silently stared at them.

Tianzi took half a step back in surprise and involuntarily puffed up in the conditioned response to male threat, however Jing just took a breath and said, "I'm a friend of Zhangyi's."

The pale man did not say a word, but he stepped back and opened the door the rest of the way to let them inside a narrow corridor. Tianzi stuck himself very close to Jing, trying his best to loom around her in some sort of protective manner as they vanished from the sunlight. He suddenly notice that the music was much louder.

He whispered down in her ear. "So who's this Zhangyi? How do you know this guy?"

She smiled confidently but Tianzi still heard a sigh of relief on her breath. "There's no guy, that's just the name of this place, Zhangyi's. I'm just glad it's open so early!"

Then they passed through a doorway and a swell of the music pounced upon them. Shaded light and swirling smoke mixed with the scent of alcohol and the sound of sour brass over over dark wood. It seemed the entire top floor of this building had banished its interior walls to form one unified space. Tianzi instantly knew his father would describe this place as a "den" of some sort despite its elevation, and as he glanced around Tianzi had to admit that few other descriptive words were immediately springing to mind. To one side of the narrow low tables was a long and well stocked bar, then across the floor past some brick supports leading up to arches lay a low stage space where a five piece band was making their gentle way through an unfamiliar song. The staff looked Fire Nation, the band looked Water, and the music had the thumping rhythm of Republic City jazz. This place must have just opened for the day but there were already a few customers making quiet conversation over by the bar.

"Um, when exactly where you here before?" Tianzi found himself tugging on his vest and feeling underdressed or at least falling far below the required style quotient for this kind of modern place.

Jing gently elbowed him in the ribs, still hearing his silent inquiry of what she had been doing even without him saying a word. "Lala and the girls from work came down with Mao and his friends a few months ago. We couldn't get into the real Fire Town club they were shooting for but luckily one of the guys knew about this place. It was fun, and look over there. They've got a balcony! Just remember that we have to order something."

Sure enough one of the walls did in fact prove to have windows behind the heavy black curtains. After a few birdlike attempts of pulling back curtains only to by stymied by glass they managed to find a door and start to slip outside, but not before an on-the-ball waitress tracked them down and struck to get an order. Tianzi was at a loss before that woman in the neat little apron around her waist; he knew that these hip places were all about cocktails now and he also knew that he didn't know the name of a single one. An Izumi's Crown might be one, or that could be a drug reference. He wasn't sure and in a place like this he was equally anxious about actually getting either of those options if he chanced it.

Fortunately, Jing had him covered here to and said a beverage name that in his anxiety Tianzi had forgotten an instant later. Then they were sneaking under the drapes to get out the door onto the narrow balcony.

In fact, it was a _very_ narrow balcony that Tianzi half suspected was designed as a planter box with a railing. It only lasted for five feet of length until it was interrupted on each aide by brick protrusions of the building face, though there seemed to be more of these little areas along this whole floor. But though he and Jing were squeezed in there, and switching places would have required a possibly criminal amount of inappropriate touching, the view was great. The two friends leaned over the railing together and grinned at the parade route stretching out below them.

The soft roar of a thousand people packing these narrow streets drifted up to meet them. They were looking in the direction of the river, although of course all sight was blocked off by the tall waterfront buildings. Tianzi supposed he would have to content himself with the shiny River God Temple up the street to their right, and of course in the other direction, the parade terminus stages that they had actually come all this way to see. Across the way, a stilt legged green spirit faded into sight on the opposite roof, but no one gave it much mind. The city had prided its self in how quickly it had come to regard the post convergence bloom of spirits as another mundane thing that only tourists gawked at.

The parade route terminated at what under normal circumstances was a fairly major intersection, and was now thoroughly blocked at each mouth by three stages. On the river side were the union guys, wearing the characteristic black bands around their hats. The lead men chewed on cigars and tucked their thumbs into the pockets of their waistcoats which struggled in the fight against the dual threats of fat and muscle. Tianzi had heard that out here in Kuang Harbor the unions were basically on the level of another government. They were also supposed to be ridiculously corrupt behind closed doors but no one in Ba Sing Se could hold that against them. That was just how things worked, and at least this was corruption flowing down to the working man.

The center and grandest stage was of course the city government's but no one cared about that too much. Governments came and went; from Huoting, to the Five Generals, to Kuvira, to Wu. It really wasn't worth getting attached. Expressing any sort of preference just set you up as a target when the next change came around.

"Ooh, ooh!" Jing knocked her fist against Tianzi's shoulder as she excitedly ignored him to point off the remaining delegation. "Over there, third stage. Look at old Ms Miohuito! I heard she was the one behind getting the whole Historic Fire Town business started. I wonder what kind of black magic she used to get the Avatar down out here past the walls."

Tianzi rolled his eyes. "The queen of the railway barons is richer than they got numbers for. Did you hear what she got the King to give her as reparations in all that denationalization? She probably just paid the Avatar's weight in silver. No need for magic."

Still, despite what he'd read in the newspapers, Tianzi couldn't help looking down at that third stage. He did not seem to be alone in that regard. There was a subtle influence acing on the crowd. Here and there across the street, heads gravitated like a dust of iron filings arcing near a magnet, all turning towards the thin old woman sitting on the smallest stage. Well, towards the two old women.

If there were a hundred rumors about old Miohuito then a full half of them featured the witch she supposedly employed. A water tribe witchdoctor, the stories said, who never left her mistress's side. One who'd bound herself to that house by brokering a deal to marry her employer to a powerful evil spirit, explaining both Miohuito's business success and why she'd never married. Then there were other people who just snickered at old jokes about confirmed virgins and Fire Nation women.

There were also a hundred stories of what had happened during Harmonic Convergence, and even in the Lower Ring there were houses with the _Eye of Ayika Kuang_ carved on their corners. The city priests and the spirit-technologies scientists had their own version of why different areas of Ba Sing Se took more or less time to reach a new other-world equilibrium. All the same, Ayika Kuang and Miohuito were urban legends.

Or maybe that lined brown face just belonged to an old housekeeper with a boss who was rich enough to not care what people thought about decorum for interacting with employees. Tianzi snorted to himself at people who actually bought all those stories of magic spells. Then he froze as the white haired Northern woman looked up and for a moment Tianzi swore she was looking straight into his eyes. Then the old woman turned to the side and whispered something to her mistress who, if Tianzi could tell from this distance, just looked patiently exasperated at the general delay though she found some humor in whatever her servant had said.

The parade was over an hour late, of course. If a civic function ever actually started on time in Ba Sing Se the population would burn the city down yet again in anticipation of the end of this world. The Avatar being delayed probably counted as respecting local customs. In the meantime, the door behind Tianzi and Jing opened allowing their waitress to hand over the drink from her tray. Tianzi felt a sinking feeling as he wondered exactly how much they were paying for this parade viewing spot. Jing took the glass of light brown liquid and ice-cubes, thanked the waitress, and then soon handed it over to Tianzi.

He grabbed it on pure reflex. "Wait, I thought you ordered that."

She flapped her hand. "You have to drink it. You're the guy and it's too early for me."

Tianzi could not help noticing that Jing's transfer process had actually involved her taking quite a large swallow mid motion. Still, he shrugged and put the glass rim to his lips. To his surprise whatever this was actually tasted quite aromatic and flowery over a smooth feel quite different from the burning he had expected. He supposed that liquor was a bit different when you paid more than five yuan for a bottle. Leaning on the railing as he was, Tianzi could just see two men on the next little balcony along the building-side. One of them met his eye and raised his own glass before turning back to his friend and laughing at some private something.

Then the noise of the city changed. In the distance towards the Wall the sound grew body and depth, spilling around corners and over roofs as it expanded and swelled. The military airships in the sky above managed to float with increased determination, and far at the other end of the street, the parade entered into sight.

A wave of celebration swept down the sidewalks. Small children on their fathers' shoulders cheered to each other above the canopy of hats. These leaders of tomorrow now formed a new community above the hat-sea, forged on the principles of free communication, desire for snacks, and a relief that something new was happening. Of course, this being Ba Sing Se, the crowd just as quickly switched to complaining about all the parts of the parade that weren't the Avatar.

Fortunately, they were quickly satisfied. The roar became deafening as a long open-top convertible appeared from behind the third marching formation. Tianzi leaned out so far over the railing that Jing grabbed onto the back of his vest in sudden fear that he was going to fall, but he saw the Avatar. At this distance she was just barely defined as a slightly darker skinned figure sitting up on the back rim of the car cabin, her feet resting on the seat. She had the right haircut, and her bare shoulders were a clear sign, but still Tianzi could swear that he felt a radiated confidence even from here. The Avatar was the protecter of the world, and surely as part of the world he should respond to that connection, right?

As the parade drew closer the Avatar's car passed right under them. At times the flurries of ticker tape confetti caused a brief whiteout but still Tianzi felt closer than he had dared to dream.

"Wow," Jing cooed. "She's so pretty! I hadn't realized. She really does not take a good picture, does she. Oh, oh, and who's that sitting in the car at her feet?"

Tianzi looked down at the other woman and wracked his brain for scraps of that newspaper article he had read. "I know this. I know...It's, um, Sato! Like the cars. She's the daughter of the one who was behind the big Equalist revolution in the Republic back seven years ago. Apparently, she's friends with Avatar Korra?"

"Ha, that's a couple _new women_ right there." Jing smiled as she watched the parade go by. "I'd like to see those anti-imperialists have something to say about those gals returning to _preserve traditional households_."

Tianzi glanced over at his friend. He'd not been aware that Jing kept up with politics enough to know those buzzwords. But then again he supposed that the other women at her work must be talking about something. Then he turned back to the street and the whole city growing up around it. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he heard Jing continue her empowered muttering. Kuvira's revolution wasn't dead yet.

The roar of the crowd rose once more into a deafening surge as the parade slowed to a stop. A convoy of uniformed government figures rushed down from their central stage to present their official welcome, but the Avatar stood up and smoothly hopped out of the car before anyone even touched the door handle. Then she leaned back and opened the door herself to let out Sato. The government officials stumbled over themselves in the middle of the intersection and defaulted into toppling at the waists into a wave of bows, only to find the Avatar striding right past them on her way to the stage. It looked like Miss Sato gave some apology as she passed the deflated officials before shaking her head at Avatar Korra ahead of her.

As the Avatar walked across the cleared intersection she glanced to her side at the union bosses getting together to hurriedly reorganize their own welcome, but she ignored them too. Tianzi grinned, she'd come here to honor the seventieth anniversary to the first official settlement for foreigners in Ba Sing Se and she was apparently not about to be distracted by people who had not dedicated themselves to preserve it. Miohuito was the person who'd back in the day used her money to fight for unrestricted residence for non-earth nation peoples, and not even the most radical of the imperialists at their height had been able to assail the position she had earned for herself in this city. Now the Avatar herself walked up to the industrialist's stage and casually jumped up without bothering to find the stairs.

Old Miss Miohuito put her hand to her mouth in surprise as Avatar Korra clasped her hands before her and bowed her head in respect to the grey haired woman. The crowd murmured in excitement. No matter what her ethnicity, Miohuito was one of theirs. In classic fashion the city was as ready to claim credit for any success it could as it was ready to disavow any failure.

Then there was an odd moment. It was so slight that at this distance Tianzi was forced to admit he may have imagined all of it. The Avatar was about to say something when suddenly she tilted her head as if sensing something. She took half a step to the side and looked past the rest of the members of Miohuito's Historical Committee to face Ayika the Kuang Witch. The Avatar staring at her questioningly. It was barely half a moment but Tianzi could have sworn he sensed something rippling through the air, some meeting of power. In the corner of his eye he saw the green spirit on the rooftop was now one of many who perched on those eaves, all looking down with uncharacteristic concern for human affairs.

Then Korra heard a sound and turned around to see Miss Sato folding her arms with good natured annoyance in front of the stage. The tension snapped. The Avatar laughed and tapped her foot to earthbend up a small block of pavement as a step. She leaned down and clasped Sato's hand to help her up with a warm smile. They were both on the stage and they were still holding hands for a few long moments. One of the other board members of the Historical committee inched forward to nudge Miohuito in the suggestion that they should start their prepared introduction. However, Old Miss Miohuito just shook her head, tears in the corners of her eyes as she grew new wrinkles from smiling. She waved her hand to the side, asking someone else to take care of the rededication ceremony. She stepped back to stand beside her housekeeper.

The speaker took up the microphone and said some words that were instantly lost in sudden renewal of the crowd's roar when Avatar Korra turned to face them. Tianzi didn't care, he joined in too, yelling out cheers as Jing did the same at his side. They laughed together as they whooped and yelled, joining the whole city in its outburst of noise. Even the spirits bayed and thundered, adding their own force and celebration for the city that was theirs as much as anyone's. Ba Sing Se had lasted through fire, and war, and revolution, and it would last through all those ten thousand times again. Now, for this brief moment it roared together in triumph under a deep blue sky.

Tianzi grinned until his cheeks hurt. Jing was right. He was glad they'd came.

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The End

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End file.
